Knight and Princess
by Frog-kun
Summary: AU. What if Inaho and Asseylum had actually died at the end of season 1?
1. Prologue

**00\. Prologue**

A single gunshot reverberated in the darkness.

The room already smelled of death. Outside, a cold wind howled.

Smoke was still rising from the boy's handgun. He looked down at the two corpses at his feet coldly and clinically, as if he were scrutinising dead insects.

One of the dead bodies belonged to the girl he had been in love with for five years. The other belonged to a Terran boy whose name he did not know.

The dead boy and girl's hands were close enough to touch. Despite their bloodied bodies and pale faces, their eyes were closed peacefully. It was as if they were sharing a sweet and intimate embrace in a world only they belonged to.

The boy with the handgun fell to his knees and began to prise the two bodies apart. His touch fell on the girl's unresponsive hand; it was still warm.

Up until that moment, the boy had moved slowly and mechanically, his face dry-eyed. But when he touched her hand his breath hitched. He began to cry bitterly.

No one responded. Every choked sob echoed against the walls, as if in answer to himself.

The boy did not know how long he cried. He knew neither night nor day. He held the girl fast against his body, not wanting to let go. It was something he had never dared to do when she was alive. Something he had always longed to do.

But eventually, he did let go, because her body was becoming colder by the minute and he simply could not bear the feel of it against his hand. The tears eventually stopped, replaced by an eerie hollowness in his gut. He felt weightless - like a bird - only his limbs could not move.

Then suddenly the guilt hit him like a tsunami, a terrible, monstrous thing that threatened to swallow him whole. His hands shook violently from the impact. The gun fell from his grasp and hit the floor with a clatter.

"Slaine Troyard."

The voice rang out, sounding alien to his ears.

With a hoarse sob, Slaine looked over his shoulder, blinking out tears.

Count Saazbaum was reclined against the wall, peering at him through half-closed eyes. He clutched his bloodied sides and smiled grimly.

"Aren't you going to finish me off?"

Slaine's fingers twitched. He looked down at the gun he had dropped.

"What is the point?" he asked plaintively. "What is the point of anything anymore?"

"There's a war going on outside," said the Count matter-of-factly.

"I hate the war," Slaine declared.

His voice was thick with bitterness.

Saazbaum looked into Slaine's face and thought he saw a face he recognised. If Slaine saw his own face at that moment, he would not have recognised it, but Saazbaum knew it for what it was.

He had seen it before in the mirror.

"Slaine Troyard," he spoke up once again, even though his head was dizzy and it was all he could do to remain conscious. "When do wars end? Do you know?"

Slaine looked at the dead princess on the ground before he answered.

"When the people on both sides throw away their hatred and wish for peace."

"No. Wars end when their goals are achieved. Do you understand, Slaine?"

For the briefest of moments, Slaine hesitated. But he could not prevent the understanding from showing on his face. He had realised the truth the moment Saazbaum uttered it.

His princess was dead. He had not felt her pulse when he touched her. All her ideas of peace had died with her. Nothing was more obvious to him at that moment.

"I understand, Count Saazbaum."

"Help me to my feet, Slaine. There is much work to be done."

Slaine walked over to his princess's murderer and silently hoisted his injured body over his shoulder.

"You did well, Slaine," Count Saazbaum said, not for the first time that day.

Slaine was silent, choosing his next words with exacting care.

"I despise you more than anyone," he said finally.

Saazbaum smiled and closed his eyes, too weary to continue the conversation.

Slaine took Count Saazbaum to the closest medical unit outside. The count was in urgent need of attention; he was still bleeding when he reached safety. Afterwards, Slaine went back to retrieve the princess's body. Unable to stand the evidence of his own terrible justice (could it really be called that?), he left the Terran boy's corpse where it was.

* * *

For saving the life of Count Saazbaum of the Vers Orbital Knights' thirty-seven clans, Slaine Troyard was promoted to a knight and given the title of "Sir".

The princess was given a royal state funeral back on Vers. Many speeches were held. It was all thanks to those accursed Terrans, said the Emperor. They had destroyed Castle Cruhteo and they had killed the princess. It was time to redouble the war effort.

These events seemed to take place in a world beyond Slaine's caring. He heard the words, but thought nothing of them. He wondered if he should have killed Saazbaum that day, and after that, killed himself. That was the only thought that went through his mind.

In the evenings, Saazbaum invited him for dinner, treating him to rich gourmet dishes imported from Earth. These days, the count walked around with his arm in a sling, though he seemed no less majestic for it. He seemed rather deep in thought, but probably not about the same things that kept Slaine up at night.

It was not too late to kill himself. Whenever Slaine was alone in his quarters, he reached for his gun - the one that had murdered that Terran boy - and he pressed the nozzle against his temple. Sometimes, he put it into his mouth and relished the cold taste of hard steel against his tongue.

But Slaine could never bring himself to pull the trigger. In truth, suicide was an alien thought to him. It was something he felt he _ought _to do, but it just felt like another wearisome duty. And duties didn't matter anymore now that the princess was dead.

One day, Slaine asked Saazbaum, "Why do you keep me alive?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?" the count asked gravely, putting down his fork and looking Slaine in the eyes.

It was slightly unnerving. Slaine looked away quickly. "I mean, I know the truth about the assassination plot," he mumbled.

"You know as well as I do that you would never be believed if you talked."

Saazbaum was right. The only person who had ever listened to or believed Slaine was dead now. If he talked, he would be beaten, possibly even killed. His death would achieve nothing.

"I suppose I should ask you instead," Saazbaum went on. "Why did you keep me alive? Hm?"

"I… I don't… that is…" Not even Slaine knew the answer to that.

"And if you believe that your life is so meaningless, why do you choose not to die?"

Slaine said nothing.

Saazbaum smiled. Normally, his smiles were pompous and knowing, but this time, it seemed slightly wistful.

"I too thought of ending my life when Orlane perished," he said.

Slaine looked up in surprise. He could hardly imagine Saazbaum in such a moment of weakness. But then he remembered that the count had waged interplanetary war for the sake of his dead wife…

"…why didn't you?" he asked quietly.

"Because, like you, I survive," the count said simply.

No grand, hidden motive? Was there nothing that kept him going besides the flames of his anger?

But Saazbaum did not respond to the question Slaine never asked; he merely went on eating in silence. So at length, Slaine went back to awkwardly picking at his food. These days, he felt little appetite. The princess would probably have told him to eat more. _"You're supposed to be a growing boy, Slaine!"_

Slaine lowered his eyes and smiled, even though the sudden pain that went through his heart was almost more than he could bear.

All of a sudden, Saazbaum spoke up.

"My wife was with child when Heaven's Fall befell us." He had a faraway look in his eyes. "A boy. Come to think of it, he would have been close to your age had he been born."

Slaine looked up and then back down again.

"I see…"

He struggled to find the words to say.

"Eat," the count broke in suddenly, looking at him. "These are the fruits of your home planet. Don't let it go to waste."

"Yes, my lord."

Just as he was commanded, Slaine ate the rest of the food on his plate, taking great care to finish at the same time as Saazbaum.

Once the meal was done, the count called in the servants to take away the plates. After that, he and Slaine were alone together again.

Slaine waited to be dismissed. He did not like to be in this room, although he did not like to be anywhere else either. Instead of dismissing him, Saazbaum looked over his shoulder at him.

"I have a proposal for you, Slaine," he said. "Sit down. This will take some time."

Perhaps Slaine should have refused. Whether it was politeness, duty or plain apathy about his fate that kept him from objecting, he could not say. But perhaps he should have refused.

"Yes, my lord," he said once again, and he sat down to listen to what Count Saazbaum had to say.

* * *

There was one more loose end to take care of.

Besides Slaine, the only person outside of Saazbaum's faction who knew of the assassination plot was the princess's handmaiden Eddelrittuo. She had been captured during the assault against the United Earth HQ. She was instantly deemed a traitor, of course, and they - the Orbital Knights - took her in without trial.

Perhaps they could have squeezed more information out of her with force, but Slaine doubted it. Eddelrittuo was not a very observant person; she never had been. And the Orbital Knights were squeamish about torture anyway - at least when it came to young Martian girls.

Unable to forget the welts on his own back, Slaine did everything he could to make the questioning as painless as possible. He asked the guards to serve the girl tea and biscuits and stood in the shadows, watching the entire proceeding with hawk-like eyes.

It all went smoothly enough. Eddelrittuo had no reason not to talk. She might have abetted the Terran forces, but that was for the princess's sake. For a traitor, she was as loyal as they came.

They asked her about the United Earth forces and the sort of strength they possessed. Slaine knew that she was too simple and honest to lie. Her answers only confirmed what the Martians already knew - that the Terran forces were a slapdash mix of professional and child soldiers and that their technology couldn't hold a candle to the Martians. They had managed a few minor victories through cheap tricks and pilfering Vers technology, but that was it. Without the princess, the Aldnoah Drive was useless to them. The Terrans might have succeeded in protecting their home base, but they had lost the strategic upper hand.

The Martians, confident and assured of their own victory, ended their questioning there. Slaine stepped out from the shadows and asked to speak with Eddelrittuo privately.

He had only one question for the maid.

"Was Her Highness happy aboard that ship?"

Eddelrittuo, who had always snubbed her nose at Slaine, answered his question grudgingly. "Yes, she was. She made friends with everyone there, even though I told her it was so improper."

Somehow, Slaine could imagine. "I'm glad," he said with a smile.

Something flickered in Eddelrittuo's eyes. "Why are _you _glad, Terran? You betrayed your own people…"

No doubt she was speaking so bitterly now because, for the first time since she had been captured, she was talking with someone she recognised. He was not a friend, but perhaps that made it easier for her in a way.

_Believe me, more than anyone, I wanted the princess to be safe…_

Slaine wanted to say that, but he knew it wouldn't make Eddelrittuo feel any better. So he traced her accusation into his heart, acknowledging its truth.

Then he said, "The pilot of the orange Kataphrakt… what was his name?"

"Orange… Kataphrakt?" Then something seemed to click in Eddelrittuo's mind. "Oh… that Terran boy. Inaho."

"What was his relationship with the princess?"

Slaine knew he was sounding like a total fool, but he simply had to know.

Fortunately for him, Eddelrittuo took the question at face value. "I always thought he was a seedy person, but I have to admit that he helped Her Highness out at every turn… _hmph._ She liked him a lot."

Slaine did not say anything, just looked at her silently, waiting for her to continue.

"I could never for the life of me figure out why! She trusted him with everything! He was always… always… _flirting _with her!"

"Flirting?" Slaine could not help himself.

"Well, not really flirting," Eddelrittuo admitted. "He didn't really change his expression or talk much or anything. And I guess it was more like Her Highness took a fancy to him. But still, he was definitely flirting with her! That low-born Terran! What impudence!"

"I see…" said Slaine, looking away awkwardly. He regretted asking.

"I remember…" Eddelrittuo said suddenly, turning pensive. "Her Highness saw the birds with him. I remember thinking I'd never seen her so happy…"

_The birds…_

_Her Highness got to see the birds… with him…_

"I wonder what happened to that Terran boy," Eddelrittuo mumbled idly.

"I killed him," Slaine said flatly.

For a moment, a look of utter non-comprehension came over Eddelrittuo's face.

"What?" she said.

"I killed him," Slaine repeated himself. "He pointed a gun at me so I shot him."

"Oh…" Eddelrittuo's face fell. "I guess that's what happens in a war…"

Hearing the word 'war', Slaine's mouth turned to a grimace. "Please listen to me very carefully, Miss Eddelrittuo."

"What is it, Terran?" Despite the sharpness of her words, Eddelrittuo's expression betrayed her fear and dismay. The shock of hearing about the Terran boy's death must have made a strong impression on her. Perhaps, in her own way, she had been quite fond of him after all.

"As soon as this conversation is over, you will die," Slaine said frankly.

Eddelrittuo's eyes widened. For once in her life, she was utterly speechless.

"You have been branded a traitor. You are more useful dead than alive. Once this conversation is over, you will be quietly disposed of."

"No… that can't be…"

"It's true. You can never be a citizen of Vers again."

Slaine peered at Eddelrittuo. She was rather ashen-faced. It seemed the true reality of war had never quite hit her until this moment. He wondered if this was how his expression had looked when he first thought the princess was dead.

"Listen to me, Miss Eddelrittuo," Slaine said once again. "If you want to stay alive after this, you must escape from this place. I'll take you to an escape pod. Go down to Earth and find that ship you took refuge in - the Deucalion."

Eddelrittuo nodded shakily. Then she asked, not without suspicion, "Why are you helping me, Terran?"

"That boy must have friends and family. I want you to tell them that it was I who killed him."

Now it was Eddelrittuo's turn to peer at Slaine. She saw every inch of the guilt on his face. "It seems I've misjudged you," she said finally, with something almost like respect in her voice.

"No, you never misjudged me." Slaine sighed. Eddelrittuo cocked her head in puzzlement. Slaine took a deep breath. "I could have disarmed him. I didn't have to kill him. But I did."

There. He admitted it.

"I killed him… because I was jealous."

"Jealous… you…? Oh," Eddelrittuo said in a small voice.

Even a fairly dimwitted girl like Eddelrittuo could put two and two together. "So… so that's why…"

"So please," Slaine cut in, clutching Eddelrittuo's hands in his desperation. "Please, tell them that his death was meaningless."

Eddelrittuo whipped her hand away as if Slaine was on fire. "And what about Her Highness?" she demanded sharply. "You're not one of those awful people who plotted her death to spark the war, are you?"

"No. I swear to you that I'm not."

Eddelrittuo pursed her lips and frowned, but she did not seem to disbelieve Slaine. After all, he had just admitted his love for the princess. Eddelrittuo was a romantic. "So why are you staying here, then?"

It was a question Slaine had asked himself many times.

"I can't fight with the Terran forces, not after what I've done. And besides, they will lose the war. In order to create peace, you must fight on the winning side."

It was the best answer he could muster. He thought of his conversation with Saazbaum and of the proposal the count had offered to him.

There was silence for a moment as Eddelrittuo weighed up his response.

"You'll never make Princess Asseylum's dream come true," she said bluntly. "Not someone like you."

More silence.

"You don't have to tell me that," Slaine said quietly, prompting Eddelrittuo to raise her eyebrows and peer at him quizzically.

She opened her mouth to say something.

At that moment, they heard footsteps pacing down the corridor outside the room. Alarmed, they turned their heads towards the door.

"Quickly, you'd better go," Slaine said, swinging back to Eddelrittuo.

The maid nodded curtly. She raced to the end of the room; a closed door stood there. Having been on the moon base before, she knew that the escape pods lay at the end of the hallway.

As the automatic door opened with a hum, Eddelrittuo looked over her shoulder at Slaine and met his eyes directly.

"I swear upon my honour as a maid that I'll tell them what you said."

Slaine closed his eyes and smiled. He knew that her honour as a maid meant far more than his honour as a knight.

"Thank you," he whispered.

The door shut tight.

* * *

**Author's note: **Lemrina is supposed to be a major character in this story, but for some reason, she's not one of the options on the FFN character list. Poor Lemrina.

Also, I did tweak the canon here and there for later events in this story to work. Orlane being Saazbaum's wife here is one of them. (She was his fiancee in the original.) And I think it's highly debatable whether Slaine shot Inaho primarily out of jealousy, but that explanation suits the themes and purposes of this story.


	2. I) A Knight's Vow

**PART ONE: LEMRINA**

**01\. A Knight's Vow **

Princess Lemrina was unimpressed with the display.

Oh, it was all very _nice_. All very touching, even. All those crying people at the funeral, so upset that poor Princess Asseylum was dead. Perhaps they hadn't gotten the memo back in July.

Ordinarily, Lemrina might have swallowed all the grandstanding. (_"Asseylum was truly a martyr who wished for nothing but peace!"_) Her sister was _such _a goody two-shoes, after all. But she was equally certain that most of the noblemen orating at the funeral had never actually had a conversation with Asseylum - or perhaps they had managed it once or twice at a dinner party. Most of the Orbital Knights kept to their castles and petty clan feuds and shiny Kataphrakts.

Lemrina could smell the hypocrisy a mile away. Asseylum would probably turn in her grave. It all made her so sick and she didn't even _like _Asseylum very much, even if she was so nice you felt bad about hating her.

And the worst of it was that Lemrina could see herself getting dragged into the whole mess of lies and hogwash in the near future.

It all started when her grandfather, who usually liked to quietly pretend that she never existed, called her to his bedroom.

"Asseylum is dead," he announced in his gravelly tone.

"Yes, I know, grandfather." Who _didn't _know?

"Gilzeria is dead," Emperor Rayregalia went on.

Gilzeria was Lemrina's father, who had died before Lemrina had even been born.

Lemrina sighed. She knew what would come next. She was the replacement, the placeholder, that awkward existence which must never be named.

The bastard child.

"Lemrina, my granddaughter. You are my only kin."

And now it had come to this.

Lemrina couldn't help but crack a wry smile.

"Is it time for me to suddenly come into existence?"

"Don't be impudent, child," the Emperor intoned. "We must proceed with caution."

_Of course. _If Lemrina died, the Vers dynasty would die with her, along with the Aldnoah activation factor.

But still, the Emperor was seventy now, and the Orbital Knights wouldn't be satisfied fighting like rabid dogs over portions of Terran land forever. Eventually, one of them would get it into his head that he could take the crown for himself once the Emperor was gone. The war was strategically necessary, but it didn't solve the root of the problem.

The Emperor needed a legitimate successor - and soon.

"Lemrina, how old are you?"

"Fourteen, my grandfather."

"Fourteen… you are old enough to give birth to sons."

Lemrina stiffened. She had expected something like this, but to hear her grandfather actually utter the words so frankly… it sent shivers down her spine.

Princess Lemrina had never known her mother. She always liked to imagine that her mother had been a noblewoman or at least someone intelligent. But sometimes, she heard whispers of the word "harlot". She could never work out if those gossipers in the court meant it literally or if every woman who makes love to a man she wasn't supposed to counted as a harlot. Either way, she hated the word.

And now she, the princess, was being told that her only role was to spread her legs for some man she had probably never met. In other words, she was being told to become a prostitute, if not in title then in spirit.

"What if I refuse?" Lemrina demanded.

"It is not something you can refuse," intoned the Emperor. "Nor can you run from it," he added, looking at her legs.

Princess Lemrina gripped the sides of her wheelchair until her knuckles were white, scowling thunderously like she never had scowled before.

_She was trapped, trapped, trapped like a bird in a cage - like those creatures from the storybooks she had never actually seen. And it was all the fault of this… this hideous ghoul of an old man._

A sudden thought flashed through the white of her fury: what if she had a knight to sweep her into his arms and take her away? That would be just like the storybooks as well. She'd say no to an arranged marriage and run off and elope and live happily ever after. But that was impossible for so many reasons, number one being her crippled legs and number two being that all the knights in this wretched empire were self-obsessed clowns.

The Empire of Vers was nothing like the storybooks from Earth. Nothing like them at all.

And so now here Lemrina was, watching her sister's funeral broadcast, listening to the Orbital Knights talk and realising with a sinking sensation in her stomach that she might actually have to marry one of these vacuous morons.

Behind her, a maid brushed her hair and crooned over her how nice and silky it was.

_Ugh._

Lemrina had half a mind to tell the stupid maid to shut up, but that would probably seem capricious, even for her standards. So she just satisfied herself by imagining a dozen ways to humiliate her grandfather and all the knights who served him.

Once the mourning period was officially over, she would make her public debut. Only a few precious weeks, then, to come up with a plan for self-preservation.

A knock on the door distracted her from her grim thoughts. "Yes, yes, come in," Lemrina said irritably.

The door opened smoothly and her tutor Sir Slaine Troyard walked in.

Her grandfather had told her that she needed formal knowledge of Earth now that she was going to become the formal successor to the throne. So he arranged for a Terran tutor to teach her, only as it turned out, his knowledge of Earth was a complete joke.

For a start, the tutor had only lived on Earth until he was about ten. He knew nothing about arts or history or literature or any of the things Lemrina was interested in. He knew about stuffy, boring things like animal biology, because his father was a scientist, apparently. As a result, the lessons were terribly dull, and it didn't seem like Sir Troyard was too enthused about them either. In fact, he seemed distracted about something half the time.

"It's time for your lesson," he said listlessly as he came into the room.

"All right, hurry up and get it over with," she said with a sigh.

Lemrina instantly tuned out as soon as Sir Troyard began talking. The good thing about him was that he never quizzed her on anything she was supposed to have learned, so she could just go "Uh huh" or "I see" at regular intervals and he would never notice a thing. Lemrina's eyes drifted up to the television screen, watching the funeral procession.

She could not afford to be like Asseylum. Her sister's naiveté had been her undoing. That was why she watched this funeral so carefully, because she needed to know the knights. Which ones were stupid and which ones were smart?

She had been so intent on the screen that for a moment, she didn't even realise that Sir Troyard had stopped speaking. When she suddenly remembered where she was and glanced sideways at him, he was staring at the screen too. The coffin was being lowered into the red soil.

Also, did she imagine it, or were Sir Troyard's eyes rather glassy?

"Sir Troyard?"

The knight blinked. "Oh, er, where was I? Oh right, crabs walk sideways because-"

She tuned out again. Instead of staring at the screen, she started at her tutor, studying his features intently.

Now that she thought about it, it was odd that a knight like him was not at the funeral. Then again, it probably had something to do with the fact he was a Terran. He'd probably get mobbed considering the furious anti-Earth sentiments expressed in the speeches.

He was definitely upset about something. But at the same time, he was trying to hold it in. It probably had something to do with her sister, judging from his reaction to the funeral. His efforts to suppress his emotions somehow made his sadness seem more palpable, unlike those ostentatious displays from the knights onscreen.

And he was _young. _Probably only about two years older than she was. She wondered how a Terran so young could become a knight - undoubtedly, it had something to do with connections because she had never heard of anything like that happening before.

"Are you listening to me, Your Highness?"

It was Lemrina's turn to blink.

"Er, yes, I'm listening."

"I think we'd better end this early today," Sir Troyard said stiffly. "I understand your distraction. I'm so deeply sorry about your sister."

_No, you're the distracted one._

But instead of saying that to him, she said, "You're right. I _am _distracted. My sister is dead, after all."

"I'm sorry-" Sir Troyard began.

"Don't be. I can't grieve over someone I've only ever watched from a distance."

"But still-"

"Like I said, don't bother. The least you can do is tell me… whether she was really that much of a saint."

"She was," said the knight solemnly. "She was a truly kind and genuine person, far more than any of us ever deserved."

His lip trembled.

_Hmm, _Lemrina thought.

"All right, I'll go now," he said, standing up. "Again, I apologise for keeping you, Your Highness."

As soon as he was gone, Lemrina turned her attention back to the screen, her mind deep in thought.

The maid went back to brushing Lemrina's hair, giggling as she did so. "Don't you think Sir Troyard is quite handsome? Even if he's a Terran, he's quite a catch."

"I suppose so," said Lemrina absently, her mind elsewhere.

Out of all the knights she had seen so far, Sir Troyard was the biggest mystery. Was he telling the truth about his admiration for Asseylum? Could he be trusted? No, perhaps it was better to ask if he could be used.

Lemrina had never tried to actively manipulate someone before, but she knew she would have to learn soon, because as it was, she quite literally had no leg to stand on.

Meanwhile, the maid was still rambling on about something, a twinkle in her eye.

"Perhaps you should marry Sir Troyard. You'll be looking for a husband soon, won't you?"

_What a passive aggressive woman, _thought Lemrina.

It wasn't that Lemrina had anything in particular against the Terrans, but she knew exactly what most Martians thought of them. It wasn't exactly difficult to spot the insult via association.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, sniffing. "He's the last candidate on the list."

* * *

As far as Lemrina knew, her grandfather was still undecided about who she was to take as a husband. Any act of overt favoritism towards one of the Orbital Knights was a politically dangerous move, but also a necessary one. There was no one to explain any of this to Lemrina, but she could figure it out on her own. She had to - her life was at stake.

Marry the wrong knight and he might just kill her after she gave birth. That way, he would become the sole heir to the Vers throne.

Even more likely was the possibility that she would be imprisoned, never to possess any power or freedom of her own. In other words, her situation would not be much different than she was right now. But even a caged bird had its own kind of freedom if no one ever heard its song. What if she ended up like Asseylum?

Oh, yes, Lemrina had her suspicions. She doubted the Terrans had ever laid a hand on her sister. If Asseylum died, the Terrans had everything to lose and the knights everything to gain. Say if Asseylum's death was the result of some Martian plot… were all the knights involved, or was it just a faction? When the knights had declared war on Earth, which of them had done so out of loyalty and outrage and which of them out of self-gain? It was impossible to tell just from watching them on a television.

Lemrina thought of the Terran knight. Perhaps he knew something. She would have to get the information out of him somehow. But she couldn't just ask him straight; he might get suspicious.

She needed some kind of hold on him… a guarantee of his cooperation…

As surreptitiously as she could, she asked the maids and engineers about Slaine Troyard. _"What's a filthy Terran doing in a knight's uniform?"_

Well, that wasn't really a surreptitious approach_, _strictly speaking, but no one batted an eyelid at the question. Everyone on the base answered her as frankly as they could, perhaps because they had all been whispering about the same thing among themselves.

Slaine Troyard was the son of Dr. Troyard, who had come to Vers to study the Aldnoah system. He hadn't made a name for himself until he brought back Princess Asseylum's body from the United Earth HQ. Now he was a knight under the protection of Count Saazbaum and piloted the Tharsis, the late Count Cruhteo's Kataphrakt.

_Asseylum… Count Saazbaum… the Tharsis…_

Lemrina turned these things over in her mind. The more she learned about Sir Troyard, the more of an enigma he seemed. One thing was for certain: he had a connection with Asseylum - with her sister…

Scrunching up her courage one day, she decided to put her theory to the test.

* * *

Despite all the ugly Kataphrakts and machines in the hangar, she loved being there. She had no need of the wheelchair. There, she could walk on her own two feet and fly.

She loved the hangar especially at night, when all the machines were turned off and nobody was around to get in her way. At that time, the world was completely silent. There was no need to fear being alone when she was the only one in the world.

_One step. Two steps. Jump. Fly._

Lemrina laughed and giggled and flapped her wings like a bird. She thought she could occupy herself like that forever. Oh, if only the night could last forever.

But soon, she heard footsteps walking down the corridor towards the hangar. Lemrina quickly came down to the ground and prepared herself.

The door opened.

"Your Highness, what calls you at this ho-?" Slaine Troyard stopped mid-sentence and stared at her, his mouth agape.

Lemrina smiled and curtsied at him. "It's been a while, Slaine."

The stupid look on his face was almost enough to make her laugh. But somehow, the thought of laughing seemed painful. The more she thought about it, the less funny it seemed.

Lemrina regretted her prank as soon as she had pulled it.

She opened her mouth, about to admit her own misdeed, when suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around her.

"This is a dream… it must be a dream… oh, my princess…"

_He was hugging her!_

"I've missed you… I've missed you so much, Princess Asseylum…"

For a moment, Lemrina was too stunned to even register the words. He was embracing her so tightly she could feel the firmness of his chest through his uniform and the warmth of his breath against her nape.

Lemrina had never been touched like this by a man before.

Inadvertently, she let out a squeak of surprise. Sir Troyard pulled away quickly, bowing his head furiously in shame.

"I'm sorry…! I'm terribly sorry…! I was acting out of line… I never meant to… _Princess Lemrina?_"

In her alarm, she had failed to keep up the holograph. When Sir Troyard looked up, he caught sight of Lemrina's wide blue eyes and her thin, still underdeveloped body.

Definitely not Asseylum.

For a moment, the shock remained frozen on Sir Troyard's features, but then resignment flickered in his eyes and he let out a withdrawn sigh.

"I apologise for my imprudence, Princess Lemrina," he said, his tone noticeably colder than before.

Lemrina's body still tingled from the feel of the knight's embrace. She barely heard his apology, let alone registered the tone of it. She stumbled back a step - and lost her footing.

Sir Troyard reached out quickly to pull her back to her feet. "You mustn't come out alone at this time of the night, Your Highness. What were you thinking?"

He was touching her for the second time. But this touch was very different from the first one. It was enough to shake Lemrina out of her stupor. With a start, she remembered why she had pretended to be her sister in the first place. It was to see what reaction he would show her.

"I get it now," she said with a smirk. "You're in love with my sister."

Sir Troyard looked away and said nothing.

"Well, I don't blame you," Lemrina went on. "My sister was beautiful and kind and everyone in the empire loved her. That's why we're fighting a war over her."

She phrased her words like daggers.

In response, Sir Troyard looked up at her with something very much like resentment simmering in his eyes. But still, he kept his mouth shut.

Lemrina narrowed her eyes. "I wondered how you were able to use the Tharsis. A Terran shouldn't be able to activate the Aldnoah drive. She must have given you the power."

She saw a flicker of acknowledgment pass through Sir Troyard's eyes. She must have hit the nail on the mark. Yet even now, Sir Troyard remained stubbornly silent.

"Slaine," she said, foregoing his title. "Do you know why I called you here to this hangar?"

"…why is that, Your Highness?"

"I want you to show me how you pilot the Tharsis. Your princess commands you."

Sir Troyard frowned, but he bowed and nodded. "If that is your wish, Your Highness, then let it be done."

He drifted up towards the Tharsis, which was stashed away behind thick glass walls. Like most Kataphrakts, it was an enormous, grey hulking thing, hunched on two mechanical legs. Perhaps some sorts could find beauty in such a monstrosity, but Lemrina despised any machine with an Aldnoah drive.

She watched Sir Troyard climb into the Kataphrakt and waited a minute. Then two.

There was no response from the machine.

Soon enough, Sir Troyard climbed out of the top hatch. "What have you done, Princess Lemrina?" he demanded.

Lemrina smiled foxily. "What else? I deactivated the Aldnoah drive. That is something only I can do."

Sir Troyard stared at her.

Lemrina stared back at him, her smile never wavering.

She knew she had the upper hand in this exchange. She could win this staring contest. Yet at that moment, for no reason whatsoever, she found herself remembering what her maid had said: _"Don't you think Sir Troyard is quite handsome?"_

Come to think of it…

He was short in stature compared to most Martians at the base, though still half a head taller than her. His face was slender, somewhat effeminate even. But you could definitely say there was something manly about the hard, determined glint in his eyes. Somehow, she could sense that this small, scrawny body of his possessed great strength. She remembered how firm and reliable his arms had felt around her body…

Lemrina broke eye contact first. "Don't underestimate me, Slaine Troyard. I'm not nice like my sister is."

"What do you want from me, Princess Lemrina?"

"I want your loyalty, Slaine."

"You already have it. My heart is sworn to Vers."

"No, no, no," insisted Lemrina. "I want you to belong to _me_."

"I'm not sure what you mean by that."

Lemrina took a deep breath. She knew she had to choose her next words carefully. Sir Troyard's cold gaze unnerved her.

"Swear your loyalty to me above the empire, as you did with Asseylum."

Sir Troyard said nothing. He seemed to spend an awful lot of time silently measuring people.

"Why?" he asked finally.

"Because… because…" Lemrina struggled to answer.

Because she had no one. Because she was alone.

It was too pathetic to say any of that.

"Because I need an ally," she settled for.

"With all due respect, you could have just asked."

"No, no, no!" Lemrina repeated herself, shaking her head firmly. "I told you, I'm not nice like my sister is. Asseylum… she was too naïve. Believing that Terrans and Martians will get along if they just put the past behind them. As if being nice really means anything. Everyone's nice to me, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm a bastard."

As she spoke those last words, she blinked angry tears out of her eyes.

For a moment, she thought Sir Troyard was about to contradict her, but then he closed his mouth and blinked slowly.

"And besides," Lemrina went on sadly. "You hate me too, don't you?"

"I don't hate you," Sir Troyard said.

"I don't believe you."

"It's true," the knight insisted. "I think I can understand your suffering, if only a small portion of it."

"So will you swear fealty to me?" Lemrina demanded.

This knight was just full of surprises. Lemrina's heart thumped quickly in her chest as she listened to his every word. She had not realised how desperately relieving it was to hear that he did not hate her.

"My loyalty is to Princess Asseylum first. But to you I will swear second, and to the Orbital Knights I swear third. Does that satisfy you, Your Highness?"

"Yes," said Lemrina breathlessly. "Yes, it does."

She brought the back of her hand to her mouth, half to cover the faint blush on her cheeks and half to run her lips over it. Then she brought her hand down in front of Sir Troyard's face.

"Kiss my hand," she commanded.

"Yes, Your Highness."

He knelt, and with infinite gentleness he took her hand and pressed his lips against it. A tingle ran down her spine. It did not feel unpleasant.

"There," she said imperiously, as he brought his head up, letting go of her hand. "I just granted you the power to activate the Tharsis once for yourself. Be grateful."

Sir Troyard nodded solemnly. Lemrina smiled almost sheepishly. She was not sure what was supposed to come next.

And then, for the very first time, her knight - Slaine - smiled in front of her. It was only a small smile, but it took Lemrina's breath away. "I will treasure this gift, Your Highness," he uttered, sounding genuinely grateful. Oh, he could be so _sweet._

"Good." She sniffed, turning her head away. "At least you know your place."

It was only later as she lay in her bed sighing into her pillow that she found herself wondering if she had actually gotten what she wanted out of that exchange with Slaine. She had wanted his vow and now she had it. She had his permission to use him. He was in over his head about Princess Asseylum and she had been able to use that to her advantage.

(Or maybe she was the one who was in over her head.)

Despite her small victory, Lemrina did not sleep that night.


	3. I) For the Princess's Hand

**02\. For the Princess's Hand**

Things were different starting the next day. Everyone in the base treated her with detached politeness, same as usual. But when Slaine came into her room to tutor her, Lemrina listened to what he had to say. That was a first.

In fact, they spent very little time talking about Earth.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about the Orbital Knights," Lemrina had told him.

That was the education which truly mattered to her.

Because of his vow, Slaine was unable to refuse her what she wanted. And so he spent a great deal of time telling her about the late Count Cruhteo, who had been in charge of Slaine's provisioning after Dr. Troyard had died. He had not, Slaine admitted, been a particularly kind master.

"Are they all like that?" Lemrina asked, wide-eyed.

"I wouldn't assume so," said Slaine.

His answers were vague, as if he was unwilling to say what he really thought. Lemrina expected as much. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would willingly gossip about others behind their backs.

Besides, it seemed Slaine hadn't actually met most of the Orbital Knights yet. He had fought on Earth alongside several knights, but they had been felled by Terran forces.

"What about Count Saazbaum?" Lemrina asked.

Slaine explained to her that his father had saved Saazbaum's life and that the count was now returning the favour.

It seemed like an overly simplistic explanation, but Lemrina had to accept it for now.

_What a disappointment,_ she thought. Her knight was close to useless. It figured. He was a Terran - what did he know of the Orbital Knights of Mars?

Noticing the pout on Lemrina's face, Slaine spoke up. "Is there anything I can do for you, Your Highness?"

Her first impulse was to huff and say, "Nothing!" But, well, Slaine was looking at her with concern and she did like to be spoiled. It was not a feeling she experienced very often. That was what made her feel so happy.

But somehow, it made her feel sad as well.

"Can you take me far away from here…?" she murmured softly.

"Hm? Did you say something?"

This time, Lemrina really did snap her head up and say, "Nothing!"

It was just a trifling thought.

* * *

"I don't want to marry any of the Orbital Knights," Lemrina told her grandfather for the umpteenth time.

"Silence, Lemrina," Rayregalia rasped. "You disturb my sleep for this?"

Her grandfather wanted to sleep a lot these days. He allowed no messengers into his bed chambers except for those bearing the most urgent of news. Being family, Lemrina was different, but only up to a point. Many times, her grandfather refused to see her.

Today, he had let her inside, probably because his health was a little bit better than usual.

"You still haven't decided who I'll marry yet, have you?" she asked, quickly changing the subject to what she actually wanted to talk about. She knew her marriage was a foregone conclusion; there was no point arguing about _that _anymore, no matter how much she wished it was not so.

Rayregalia exhaled slowly. His breath sounded halfway between a sigh and a wheeze. "No," he admitted. Then he said, "Count Saazbaum has served me well. I asked him to take you, but he refused."

Lemrina looked up in alarm. _So he had_ _picked someone already!_

Also… Count Saazbaum? He was old enough to be her father. Eww.

"Why did he refuse?" Lemrina asked, feeling immensely relieved that this backdoor dealing didn't go through.

"Ask him yourself if you want to know."

Lemrina would probably have been infuriated by what her grandfather said if Count Saazbaum himself did not suddenly appear in the room. The entire room was a teleportation device, permitting easy access for a high-ranking count like Saazbaum. Lemrina wondered how many of her conversations with her grandfather he had eavesdropped on.

"You…!" she gasped, unable to keep the revulsion out of her voice.

Count Saazbaum smiled wryly and bowed. "It is always an honour, my princess."

His right arm was in a sling and he held a walking stick in his left hand, so his bowing gesture seemed rather awkward and exaggerated. Or maybe he had intended it like that. Lemrina could not tell.

"You're a beautiful young lady, Princess Lemrina, but I'm afraid I lack the desire to marry again."

He smiled genially, but Lemrina did not smile back.

"Besides," the count went on, sending the emperor a meaningful glance. "The princess has a right to choose her groom for herself, does she not?"

"…I suppose she does," Rayregalia admitted grudgingly.

Her grandfather would never have responded like that if Lemrina had made that suggestion herself. Lemrina stared incredulously at Count Saazbaum, wondering why he would say something like that on her behalf. Surely not for her sake, right?

"However," said Rayregalia, "if she were to make an ill-conceived choice…"

"It must truly be a sad state of affairs if our liege cannot trust his own subjects," Count Saazbaum observed. "For whose sake do we brandish our arms and wage heavenly justice upon Earth?"

"That is not what I mean," Rayregalia intoned. "Lemrina is only fourteen years old."

_Only fourteen years old?_

So apparently, she was old enough to give birth, but not old enough to make her own decisions?

She opened her mouth and then closed it, knowing that arguing would get her nowhere. At that very same moment, Saazbaum turned to her.

"Does anyone interest you, princess?"

Lemrina hesitated.

"Speak. We shall judge the merit of your choice," Saazbaum declared.

"I don't want to marry anyone," Lemrina said truthfully.

"You cannot expect her to understand," said her grandfather.

Saazbaum tapped his stick against the ground. He continued to speak directly to Lemrina. "So then, do you believe there is no such thing as love in an arranged marriage?"

Lemrina struggled to answer. "It's not really about _love…_" She did not understand love. "It's just… I just… I don't want to be a tool."

Again, to her amazement, the count actually listened to her.

"Then grasp hold of your fate and make a choice," he said after a moment of consideration. "Your decision will move planets. Do not take it lightly."

"A-all right," Lemrina responded affirmatively in spite of herself.

What the count said made sense… but it frightened her at the same time.

To think she could hold power over the world, but no power over the course of her own life. Or maybe she could_ control_ her fate, but doing so would make her lose all other options.

If she had any real options to begin with…

It was all so confusing. Lemrina gripped the sides of her head and wished it would all stop.

But when she opened her eyes, the Emperor and count were still there, looking at her with expectant eyes.

"…I'll think about it," she mustered finally.

She needed more information. She needed more time.

* * *

When she was alone, Lemrina began to think about what would happen if she married Slaine.

She did not seriously consider the idea. She only thought of it because Slaine was the only knight she spoke to with any familiarity, and also because he was admittedly very handsome.

Her grandfather would shoot down the idea immediately. He was a Terran. The Martians were supposed to be at war with the Terrans. If she said something like "I want to marry Slaine", her grandfather would never trust her decision-making skills ever again.

In the moon base library, she had access to files of the Orbital Knights, detailing their family histories. She pored through the information on the tablet, typing out copious notes of her own. It was a game of elimination. First, she had to rule out the knights whom she couldn't possibly marry, either because they were too old or because they already had wives.

Ignore looks. Vanity would only make her look simple-minded. Lemrina crossed out a few more names.

Now then, what sort of knight would be "safe" to marry? Probably one who took the war effort seriously. The purpose of her marriage was to strengthen the power of the Vers dynasty. In that case, she should only marry someone with combat experience.

That narrowed down the list to about… fifteen candidates.

It was still too many. And she didn't know any of these people.

_Urk. _Back to square one.

Lemrina put down the tablet with a groan.

"Your Highness, is something troubling you?"

Someone hovered over her shoulder. It was Slaine.

"When did _you _get here?" Lemrina asked with annoyance. She did not want to look him in the eyes. After all, even though she had quickly dismissed the idea, she had thought of marrying him. It just felt _weird _seeing him in the flesh after spending time thinking about him in that kind of way.

"I was looking for you, Princess," Slaine explained patiently. "Is there anything you need or-"

"How would you have reacted if my sister asked you to marry her?" Lemrina asked suddenly.

"That would never have happened," Slaine said calmly.

"Why not? You were lovers, weren't you? How else could she have given you the Aldnoah activation factor?"

"You are mistaken." Slaine smiled thinly. "When I was on the verge of death, the princess resuscitated me. Since then, I have been in her debt."

A debt he evidently never managed to repay.

"So, you never even considered the idea? Not even in your dreams?" Lemrina knew she was reopening his wounds with every word she uttered, but she did not care. Perhaps she even relished it.

"Well, I, er… um… uh…" Slaine spluttered helplessly. He was bright red in the face. That told her all she needed to know.

_How cute, _Lemrina thought.

She thought she could understand hopeless, fragile fantasies, never to be spoken of aloud.

Lemrina wished she could dwell on her own dreams, but she knew they would crumble the moment she voiced them.

"In any case," said Slaine, coughing. "There's someone here to meet you."

"Oh," said Lemrina, coming back to reality. "Who is it?"

"Count Marylcian and Count Barouhcruz."

_Orbital Knights?_

Lemrina opened her mouth in mute shock. _Impossible! How did they know her?_

Slaine looked at her evenly. "Time is of the essence," he said cryptically.

Lemrina gripped the sides of her wheelchair, her mind racing even as her body remained immobile. "Take me to them, Slaine," she commanded.

He wheeled her over to the hangar. When Lemrina walked through the hangar on her own two feet, she saw two large Kataphrakts come inside through the barrier: a red one and a blue one. Apparently, the red Kataphrakt belonged to Count Marylcian, while the blue one belonged to Count Barouhcruz.

Count Marylcian was the first one to come out of his Kataphrakt. Lemrina had been looking through his file only minutes earlier, so she recognised him immediately. He was a blonde-haired young man who seemed to have paid a good deal of attention to his curls. He had been one of the fifteen eligible candidates on the list, she recalled.

She barely even took notice of the dark-haired, withdrawn Count Barouhcruz, because Count Marylcian spoke up animatedly the moment he laid his eyes on her.

"It is truly an honour and a pleasure to meet with you, Your Highness Princess Lemrina."

Who had approved of this meeting? Lemrina swung her eyes over to Count Saazbaum, who was standing with his back to the wall, watching the exchange with a slight smile on his face.

_Figures._

"Likewise," said Lemrina, turning back to Count Marylcian with a curtsy. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Count Marylcian?"

"My princess," said the count with a sweeping bow, "I understand that you have been hidden away from the public eye for your own protection."

He stepped off his Kataphrakt and landed on the ground in front of Lemrina with a flourish.

"As a knight, I eagerly await your formal debut," he went on.

_Yes, but what did he want? _Lemrina gazed at him with half-narrowed eyes.

Beside Count Marylcian, Count Barouhcruz knelt formally, not saying a single word.

Count Marylcian did all the talking. "My princess," he said once again in that same unctuous tone, "is it not necessary for a man to protect you? These are dangerous times."

"I am being protected by Count Saazbaum and his men," Lemrina said evasively. But actually, she knew exactly what Marylcian was talking about. "Are you proposing marriage to me, Count Marylcian?"

"Ah, my princess, you should have allowed me to speak those words first!"

Lemrina clenched her mouth tightly as the count brought out a colourful bouquet from behind his back. "What are these?" she asked.

"Earth flowers, I suppose," Count Marylcian drawled carelessly.

"They're hydrangeas, Your Highness," Slaine said behind her. "We went over this in our lessons."

Count Marylcian threw a glare at Slaine. Next to Marylcian, Barouhcruz muttered, "Hydrangeas… so that's what they're called."

"I brought these from Earth," said Count Marylcian, "as a gesture of my good will and hard work."

Lemrina took the hydrangeas and examined them carefully. She had never held flowers in her hand before. They certainly had an exotic look about them, like something that could only have come from Earth.

At the same time, she wasn't _really _looking at them. She knew all the men in the room were gazing at her expectantly, waiting for her response.

Once again, Lemrina glanced at Saazbaum. He must have let slip news of her existence to the other knights, perhaps so that her formal debut would not come as a complete shock. Or maybe he had done this to see how she would respond to a real proposal. It was obvious Count Marylcian was attempting to take advantage of her lack of public exposure in order to secure her favour first.

Things were moving too quickly for comfort now. Lemrina glanced at Slaine next, but his features betrayed no emotion.

Finally, she turned back to Count Marylcian. She had seen the way he had reacted to Slaine's casual explanation about the flowers. He was a prideful man who would probably not respond well to rejection.

And even if she did manage to reject him, what about all the other knights?

_Think, Lemrina, think…_

"So you have been fighting on Earth," she said slowly and carefully, in order to buy herself time. "How goes the conquest?"

"Extremely well, my princess! Why, I could bring you down to Earth and show you my conquered territory, if you'd like!"

"Oh, yes," said Lemrina, her heart palpitating quickly as she pasted a smile on her face. "But how does it compare to the other knights? Is the land truly full of resources useful to Mars?"

"Er, well, I…" For a moment, Count Marylcian was stumped. It was clear he had not anticipated this question. Lemrina thought she already knew what he would say, but if her expectations were wrong, then she was ruined. "But of course! My territory is far superior! I am far more accomplished than all those other knights."

_I see._

All of a sudden, Lemrina no longer feared this knight. How could she fear someone whose motives were so obviously transparent?

With clarity came relief. Lemrina relaxed and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them.

She knew what to do.

"I apologise, Count Marylcian," she said with another curtsy. "I cannot yet make my decision. You see, it is in my interest as a monarch to pave the way for a better future for Vers. And so I must make my decision very carefully. I can only marry the strongest knight."

"B-b-but I am the strongest!"

Count Marylcian looked hopelessly lost for words. Even Count Barouhcruz seemed speechless, and he hadn't even said anything.

"I believe your words," Lemrina assured Marylcian, "but I also need to see it through action. Do you not understand, Count Marylcian? This is an opportunity for you to prove yourself before the entire empire."

"What are you suggesting, Your Highness?" asked Count Barouhcruz quietly.

Barouhcruz was the wily one. Lemrina focused upon him with renewed attention. In that moment, he saw and appreciated her for something more than a bastard princess, and she saw and appreciated him for something more than an Orbital Knight.

She smiled. "It would be most unfair to the knights of this realm to tell it only to you. So I shall make my debut today. Is that quite all right, Count Saazbaum?"

"It is," said Saazbaum in a measured tone, looking at her carefully. "Let the will of heaven be done."

"Good."

Lemrina closed her eyes.

When she opened them, she was no longer in the moon base hangar but in the throne room at Vers. The room itself was empty and hollow, and if she spoke up here, her voice would echo against the high ceiling with no response. But here, all eyes of the red planet and blue planet were upon her.

The throne was cold to touch. Rayregalia sat upon it only very occasionally to make his announcements. When Lemrina sat upon it, the seat felt cavernous, as if it held the power to swallow her whole even as it propped up her crippled body before the world.

She had been so full of indecision until minutes ago, but now, when push came to shove, she knew that she had to act quickly to preserve the peace and her own life. Perhaps losing all her other options made it possible to act.

She was a princess of Vers. This much was within her capabilities.

Lemrina opened her mouth and began to speak.

"My name is Lemrina Vers Envers, second princess of Vers and granddaughter of Emperor Rayregalia Vers Rayvers. I speak now to the people of Vers. For my protection, out of fear for what those accursed Terrans eventually did to my sister Asseylum, I stayed hidden from the world. But today, I end my cowardice and stand before you as the true heir of the throne of Vers.

"Nothing fills me with greater delight than the thought of avenging my dear sister. For this, I extend my eternal gratitude towards all thirty-seven clans of the Orbital Knights, whose efforts to subjugate Earth serve the good of this empire.

"I wish to strengthen the ties of our glorious empire. To that end, I propose to marry the strongest knight of Vers. It is my hope that together, we shall create a bountiful future that will end poverty on Mars."

It was lies, all lies. But they were lies twisted to serve the purpose of her personal truth, for the sake of making the planets move. If she had to pit man against man for the sake of securing her own position, then so be it. Let it be done.

She took a deep breath. The last part was the most important, she knew. She had to phrase it just right.

"And so I propose to hold a tourney in my name. I will give my hand in marriage to the winner, to the strongest war leader among the Orbital Knights. For the sake of Vers, for the sake of the princess's hand, I urge every knight to fight and show me his true capabilities."

Lemrina finished speaking.

The throne room was empty. For the moment, she had no idea how the rest of the world had reacted to her speech. What had her grandfather thought?

What would her sister think?

Lemrina had no way of knowing. She closed her eyes, and in that moment, all she could see was her sister's beautiful, beaming face as she announced that she was going to bring peace to Earth and Mars.

When Lemrina opened her eyes, she was back in the moon base hangar, surrounded by war machines and gazing upon the faces of the men she had left behind.

Slaine, she noticed, was grimacing. He had no love for war.

Count Marylcian was plainly shocked and also eager. He had taken the speech on face value.

Count Barouhcruz was silent and contemplative. He had seen Lemrina's speech for what it was - an act of political scapegoating.

And Count Saazbaum… Lemrina never forgot Count Saazbaum's face afterwards. He was smiling approvingly, like a kindly uncle impressed with his niece's talent. He evidently thought her speech was a good move. A sensible move, given her unstable position and how little she trusted the Orbital Knights. Pit them against each other and against Earth, so that they would not think of turning against her.

But underneath the approval, there was a knowing glint in Saazbaum's eyes, as if Lemrina had played right into his hand.


	4. I) Father and Son

**03\. Father and Son**

Her grandfather was furious with her, predictably enough.

He probably would have yelled at her if he had the energy. Instead, he said, "You should have consulted me first," and then kicked Lemrina out of his bedroom in obvious irritation. He let her off surprisingly lightly, all things considered, so perhaps she ought to be grateful about it. Or maybe this was his way of telling her without so many words that he was fine with the decision itself.

The fact that nobody, not even the Emperor himself, was too worried about putting the war effort on hold briefly for the sake of a tourney probably spoke volumes about the arrogance of the Martians.

A veritable storm of activity followed over the next couple of days. Every day, the hangar was full of visitors - various counts and countesses, barons and baronesses. Lemrina recognised most of them through her research and observations before her debut, but it was still difficult to keep track of all the names and faces, especially when they visited her one after another, not allowing her any moment to breathe. What was most exhausting was her obligation to smile and talk pleasantly with each and every one of them, even when she thought most of them were idiots.

In those first couple of days, Lemrina barely saw Slaine around at all, even though he was supposed to be her knight. The tutoring sessions were put on hold. Whenever they bumped into each other in the hallways, Slaine bowed to her curtly and went on his way, neatly avoiding her eyes as he did so. If Lemrina didn't know any better, she might think he was _avoiding_ her or something.

It was all so unbearably irritating, especially when Count Marylcian followed her around the whole time like a dog wagging its tail. He talked like he had already won the tourney and she was his trophy wife. Lemrina honestly did not care a whit about him. Every time he spoke to her, she felt as if she was losing more brain cells.

She just couldn't stand it when he called her pretty. It just wasn't true. She knew better than anyone else that she wasn't really that pretty. Next to her sister, she was just plain.

Eventually, she got so fed up with Marylcian that she made up some lame excuse about wanting to take a nap. Like the oh, so chivalrous knight he was, he took her to her quarters. When finally she was alone, Lemrina ducked her head out the doorway, peered left and right, and then wheeled herself towards Count Saazbaum's quarters.

Oh, yes. That was another thing that annoyed her to no end. The look on Count Saazbaum's face - just what had it meant?

Lemrina trembled with rage at the thought of being a tool.

Unfortunately, she did not quite make it to the count's quarters undetected. As she was passing the mess hall, Count Barouhcruz came out of the door and very almost walked into her. The wheelchair was too clunky to manoeuvre out of the way. Luckily for her, Barouhcruz stopped just in time.

"Oh, my apologies, Your Highness," he said courteously. "You have some business to attend to, I take it?"

She noticed he did not ask exactly what business it was, as if understanding implicitly that it was not something she wanted him to know. She nodded and was about to put her wheelchair into motion again.

"I would be careful if I were you," said Count Barouhcruz.

"Hm?"

"There are ears in every wall. Be careful about which friends you make… and the enemies you choose to take."

"I see," said Lemrina coolly. "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

She wheeled away then, trying not to show her uneasiness on her face.

Was Count Barouhcruz a friend or enemy? What about Count Saazbaum?

She had to know, but she could not ask because that would only reveal her ignorance. A single misstep would make her lose all the tentative power she had managed to build up.

She would not allow herself to be manipulated by any cold coot.

Lemrina grit her teeth until she made it to Saazbaum's quarters. The doors were closed, but when she strained her ears she could hear voices.

She recognised them at once. Count Saazbaum and Slaine.

"…I don't like the idea of this," Slaine was saying.

"The one who controls Aldnoah controls everything," Count Saazbaum said.

"I understand that, my lord, but-"

"Slaine, you are a bright young lad. Surely you have seen where the future will take us."

There seemed to be no response from Slaine for a moment.

"A world without resources," he said finally. "A world of crippling poverty where only the elite have power."

"Correct, and it is precisely this predicament which brings us to war."

"This is not the world Princess Asseylum would have wanted." Slaine's voice sounded bitter. "The knights should be fighting together for peace, and yet…"

"Now you are merely stating the obvious," said Count Saazbaum.

"I know. I know that… but…" Slaine paused for a moment, probably to swallow. "This tourney will only prolong matters."

"No, Slaine. It is a sign of how far our civilisation has come."

"In a backward direction."

For some reason, Count Saazbaum laughed.

"This is why I call you my son, Slaine. You see what we Martians cannot. That is why you must fight, Slaine."

Silence. No response from Slaine.

"Fight," the count repeated in a firmer tone. "Fight for the princess's hand."

Lemrina almost let out a gasp in shock. Fortunately for her, she put a hand over her mouth just in time.

_Count Saazbaum wants Slaine to fight in the tourney…?!_

It made sense. Lemrina could never choose Slaine for a husband, not with his standing. But if Slaine earned the right himself, then _of course_…

Lemrina pressed her ear harder against the door, suddenly desperate to know what Slaine would say. Nothing else at that moment seemed to matter.

"Princess Lemrina?" said a voice behind her suddenly.

If Lemrina were not crippled, she would have jumped. When she looked over her shoulder, a serious-faced young man stood before her. It was Slaine's personal attendant, she recalled. A name rose up from the banks of her memory - _Harklight. _Lemrina had become rather good at remembering names of late.

And with that, Lemrina knew it was all ruined. Harklight would certainly tell Slaine she had been eavesdropping. There was no point hiding it.

"Good timing, Sir Harklight," she said, smiling at him. "I want you to take me back to my room. Tell Slaine I've been waiting for him."

Harklight obeyed dutifully, not asking any questions.

When Lemrina was back in her room, she sighed and gazed out the window. There was nothing to do but to wait. The expanses of space lay out there with no end in sight. Though it was a familiar sight, it never failed to hold an eerie sort of beauty.

Presently, she heard a knock on the door. "It's me, Your Highness," came Slaine's voice.

When Slaine walked into the room, Lemrina noticed that he was still avoiding her eyes. Understanding better now why he did it, Lemrina did not begrudge him for it. Instead, a dim sort of sadness fell over her.

"Sit down, Slaine," she told him, ushering towards the couch in front of her. Slaine did as he was told. She forewent the small talk. "I know what you and Count Saazbaum are plotting."

Slaine hesitated. He looked more ashamed than ever.

"Do you really want me that badly?" Lemrina asked, giggling with scorn.

"Your Highness," he said, speaking up finally. "This is hard to say…"

"Oh, I know," she cut in. She knew the truth; it had been impressed upon her since the moment she was born. "It's not me you want - it's the power of Aldnoah."

Slaine was no better than those other opportunistic knights. She was nothing more than a means towards an end.

She ought to have expected as much.

"…you're right," said Slaine abruptly. "It pains me to say it, but I have need of your power. It is not honourable, but it is the truth."

Lemrina's jaw dropped. All the other knights of the realm would have chosen to flatter her, but Slaine did not.

It should have angered her. She should have dismissed him immediately. But Lemrina could only say, "You have done nothing wrong."

Slaine looked up, a little bit startled himself.

"You're the same as all the others, only more honest," Lemrina said. Her chest hurt. "You don't need my permission to fight for me. I just hope you lose."

"Yes, of course, Your Highness." He still looked uneasy.

Lemrina sighed. It tired her to talk of these things with Slaine. He had as much chance of winning as a flower had of growing on Mars. But the gesture in itself was somehow significant. She did not want to think too hard about it because it was so very tiring.

"Listen, Your Highness, you must relax. You have not had much sleep lately," Slaine broke in suddenly.

"What do you care about how much sleep I have?" Lemrina snapped. "You said I'm just a tool to you."

"I do care."

Suddenly, Slaine was looking straight into her eyes.

"Your power might be significant, but you are a human being first," he said solemnly. "That is why… that is why…"

It suddenly clicked - the reason why Slaine had been so reluctant about fighting for her hand. "You don't want to marry me."

"I know that it is not what you want. You'd rather there was no tourney at all."

Lemrina swallowed. All of a sudden, she had no idea what to say. All the acerbic words had dried in her throat. "Slaine…"

He took her hand gently. "You really should take a nap, Your Highness." He smiled wearily. "You're the same as me."

* * *

But in the end, Lemrina did not sleep much.

She lay tossing and turning in her bed, thinking of Slaine and all the things she longed for but could not have.

It was all a lie. It had to be a lie. Slaine was just trying to flatter her. That was Count Saazbaum's plot - to use her through Slaine. She was sure of it. If she thought about things rationally, that was how it worked. By now, she was used to wearing words like a suit of armour; she would not be defeated by another person's words.

Saazbaum knew. Somehow, he knew everything. All this time, she tried not to think too much about Slaine because it made her feel weak. She remembered his kiss on her hand all over again and trembled. She remembered his smile and sighed.

She had to tell herself over and over again that it was all a lie.

When eventually she did sleep, she dreamed of Asseylum, the sister she never knew nor loved.

"Slaine is a precious friend of mine," said Asseylum in the dream, in a voice that sounded warm and inviting and honest and true.

Lemrina did not understand, could not understand - just what her words meant, or even how she said them. It was all unfathomable to her. But Asseylum would not change her words, foolish sister that she was.

"_A precious friend… a precious friend…"_

* * *

For various reasons, it was decided that the tourney would be held on Earth.

The main reason for this was logistical. It would be difficult to get many of the knights into space when they were busy conquering Earth territory. But mostly, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to show off the glory of the Orbital Knights in front of Earth's subjugated citizens.

After some thought, Lemrina decided to hold the tourney on the archipelago of Japan, one of the first territories to be conquered. Lemrina did not know much about the place, but it was currently swarming with Martians - there were more Martians in Japan than the entire Americas.

Yet the moment Lemrina spoke of Japan, Slaine grimaced the way he had when she first announced the tourney. Lemrina she was stepping on a potential landmine - she wasn't stupid - but at the same time, the circumstances were completely different from when Asseylum had first visited Earth. The knights were already on Earth; they needed no pretext to invade. Lemrina was more valuable alive than dead.

And as for the possibility of being harmed by the Terrans… well, she had her knights to protect her.

Count Saazbaum approved, but Slaine made his distaste apparent.

"You are endangering yourself, Your Highness," he insisted. "At least stay in the base. Don't come down to Earth."

"And not witness my own crowning? What cowardice is that, Slaine?"

"I have a bad feeling about all of this," Slaine muttered darkly, though he was resigned. "If you must insist on going, I beg you to stay close to me, Your Highness."

And after that, he never let her out of his sight.

Of course, Slaine was not the only one who insisted on protecting her. Count Marylcian declared, "I can do a much better job of protecting you than that Terran can!" Slaine, despite his quiet, conscientious ways, never ceased to irritate the count. It was honestly a pain being around the two of them at the same time, but Lemrina knew that she could not afford to dismiss Count Marylcian. Besides, being alone around Slaine unnerved her.

Things were moving quickly. The arrangements were made for her space shuttle to land on the coast of Taiwan, and from there to take a ship to Tokyo. For her protection, the rest of the world was not to know how or when she would arrive.

On the day before they departed, Lemrina watched the stars from her room. She had asked to be alone. Lemrina thought about saying goodbye to Mars and to the moon base she had always known, but then she realised she had never felt at home here. She wondered if Earth would be different. Probably not.

So Lemrina spent her final day in space devising new speeches, plotting for the future.

Then finally, the day of reckoning came.

Lemrina boarded the shuttle along with Saazbaum, Harklight and a handful of other men charged with protecting her. Slaine, Marylcian and Barouhcruz kept vigil in their Kataphrakts. The shuttle itself was rather small and barebones, and there were no pretty paintings on the wall like there had been in the base, but Lemrina did not mind. She had too much on her mind to worry about things like that.

"Are you nervous, Your Highness?" Count Saazbaum asked her as the shuttle doors closed tight.

Lemrina hesitated, and then figured it was probably okay to tell the truth in this situation. "Yes. I've never been to Earth before. I've heard it's a beautiful place."

"Don't get your hopes up," said the count with a dry laugh. "Where we go, the land is not beautiful."

"Why not?" Lemrina asked, astonished.

"Do you suppose any land ravaged by war is beautiful?" the count asked.

"Oh," said Lemrina.

After that, she stopped looking forward to her trip to Earth.

Travel between the Earth and moon was fast thanks to Aldnoah technology, so it only took a matter of hours until the shuttle arrived at the destination. In the meantime, Lemrina read a book - a novel about a knight and princess who fell in love. It was very cheesy. The dialogue was particularly embarrassing; she was not sure how someone could write lines like that with a straight face. But Lemrina read it all anyway because she actually did sort of enjoy it, although she would not have admitted that to anyone.

When she reached the end of the book (after much dithering around, the idiotic princess finally admitted her love for the knight, who was a bit of a jerk, all things considered), Lemrina looked out the window and discovered they had breached Earth's atmosphere.

She knew this because the world outside the window was not dark. They were surrounded by puffy white haze and the moon was nowhere in sight. "It shan't be long now, Your Highness," Count Saazbaum told her.

The sudden drop in altitude made her feel light-headed. "What's this puffy stuff?" she asked curiously.

"Clouds," said Count Saazbaum. "You never paid any attention to Slaine's lessons at all, did you?"

Lemrina would ordinarily have devised a sarcastic response, but the sudden sensation that came over her sucked all the wit out of her brain. Her head spun, her stomach churned and her ears felt like they were popping.

"The first time is always the hardest," said Count Saazbaum as he patted her on the shoulder and offered her a paper bag. Lemrina retched.

That was her first memory of Earth.

* * *

"Are you feeling better, Your Highness?" Slaine's voice asked her.

"No," said Lemrina bluntly.

Her eyes were scrunched shut. She was still lying in bed, not in a space shuttle now but in a moving boat. It was all the same to her. The swaying was driving her mad.

The ship was a high-quality vessel, but that didn't matter squat to Lemrina.

"Have some water," Slaine said comfortingly.

Lemrina opened her eyes weakly. Slaine was holding a glass of water in his hand, leaning towards her face. His eyes blinked wide in concern.

"Not so close…" Lemrina croaked.

"My apologies." Slaine shrank away in embarrassment.

Lemrina had actually liked it when his face was close to hers, but it was a bit late to say that now. In any case, she still felt rather queasy, which put her in a grumpy mood.

"Why did I come down to Earth?" she grumbled. "I should have listened to you, Slaine."

"You'll have to make the best of it," he responded sympathetically, stretching out the glass in his hand towards her once again.

This time, she took it from him and downed its contents in one swallow.

After drinking the water, her head felt a little clearer. "How does it feel to be back on Earth?" she asked. It occurred to her that she knew very little about Slaine, other than that he was born on Earth.

"The last time I was here, I was fighting a war," Slaine responded, somewhat evasively.

"And the time before that?"

"The time before that…" Slaine lowered his eyes.

"Bad memories?" Lemrina lowered her eyes too. "Sorry," she said gruffly.

Suddenly, he smiled. "That's the first time you've ever said sorry to me, Your Highness."

She spluttered. "What impertinence!"

But then she smiled too. So Slaine had a cheeky side to him. He ought to show it more often.

"Before I came to Vers, I lived on Earth with my father," Slaine explained. "It was just the two of us. Those were happy days."

Lemrina listened to all of this with a bit of wonderment. She had never heard Slaine talk about himself at such length before. Perhaps coming to Earth had filled him with nostalgia.

"But at the same time, I don't regret coming to Vers," he continued. "Even now, I think that."

"Why?" Lemrina asked, in spite of herself. "Everyone's so horrible to you up there."

_Including me_, she thought.

But Slaine only smiled. "My father was always busy with his research. I always had to play by myself until I came to Vers…" He trailed off there. Lemrina didn't have to ask to know that he was thinking fondly about her sister. For a moment, he looked less like a knight and more like a boy, younger than his seventeen years.

Abruptly, he coughed.

"Anyway, I'd best leave you to rest now, Your Highness."

He was halfway through bowing when the door suddenly opened. Light suddenly streamed into the cabin, blinding Lemrina. She cowered behind the sheets.

"Milord Slaine, it's an emergency!" came Harklight's voice.

"What is it?" Slaine demanded.

"UFE submarines… they've been spotted in the waters!"

"What?!"

Lemrina was just as shocked as Slaine sounded. _Enemy forces…? No, it couldn't be…_

Slaine quickly turned his head to face her. "Your Highness, stay in bed and wait until I return. I will protect you, I swear it."

Then he followed Harklight out the cabin, shutting the door securely behind him.

Alone now, Lemrina's heart pounded in the semi-darkness. Her seasickness was forgotten amid the new wave of fear and nausea that came over her.

Up in space, she'd always been so protected and secure. The fighting felt like it happened on a distant planet. That was literally true, so of course she felt that way. But it was still so naïve of her. Was this what Slaine had warned her of?

She wasn't sure how long she spent waiting alone in that cabin, helpless and immobile. Presumably, the knights were doing all the fighting. But how could Kataphrakts, which were traditionally land and airborne units, counter submarines? Oh no, her men would surely have compensated, right?

_Ugh…_ It didn't bear thinking about. She couldn't actually hear any gunfire or anything, so she had no idea what was going on outside. In a way, that just made the waiting worse. She didn't know a thing about military mumbo jumbo or how fighting was supposed to work. She could only place her faith in Slaine to protect her.

All of a sudden, the cabin door swung open. Lemrina let out a muffled cry in alarm.

_An enemy?_

The man closed the door and stepped towards her. Lemrina hid her face under the blankets, knowing that it would do nothing to help for but insisting upon it anyway.

Her heart pounded in her ears.

Then finally, she heard a familiar voice. "Do not hide your face, princess. It is I, Saazbaum."

With a sigh of relief, Lemrina peeled away the blanket. Count Saazbaum was smiling at her. He held a gun in his hand.

"How is the situation outside? We're not in any danger, are we? Slaine's all right, isn't he?" Lemrina babbled.

"The ship is extremely well-protected. Terran submarines won't do you any harm," Count Saazbaum assured her.

"Oh, good," said Lemrina. "That's a relief, then. I suppose there's nothing to fear after a-"

Count Saazbaum chose that moment to cover her mouth with his hand and press his gun against her forehead.


	5. I) Knights around a Table

**04\. Knights around a Table**

For a moment, Lemrina could not even comprehend the sight. It was just so alien to her. She had never seen a gun so close. She could see every detail of the design, with its shiny polished barrel and bits of metal jutting out at different spots. It was an ugly thing, she decided after staring it in the face.

Then she thought, _I'm going to die._

Before she could react, Saazbaum closed his finger around the trigger. Unable to make a sound, Lemrina's eyes widened in alarm.

But nothing happened. There was a click, but that was it.

"The safety catch is still on," Saazbaum pointed out with a chuckle.

The gun barrel was no longer staring Lemrina in the face. She could only watch in bewilderment as the count put the gun securely into his belt and moved his hand away from her mouth.

"What would you have done if I were the enemy?" he asked.

Lemrina was speechless. It was a sensible question, but she could not answer it.

"Remember, princess. When you lead a country in war, you put your life on the line."

Count Saazbaum stepped away from her bed and held his hands behind his back. His eyes peered down at her sternly… but not maliciously.

At last, Lemrina's brain kicked into gear. "Why are you telling me something I already know?" she demanded bitterly. Perhaps part of her anger was fuelled by her still frantically beating heart.

"But you don't know," said the count. Then he corrected himself. "You know, but you do not understand."

"You're just trying to intimidate me."

Lemrina would ordinarily have kept that thought to herself, but it slipped out of her mouth unbidden. Now that she had time to think rationally, _of course _Count Saazbaum wouldn't shoot her in her bed in broad daylight. No one could be that stupid.

She thought the count would argue with her, but he merely shrugged. "Interpret it as you wish."

Then he walked out the door, not sparing a glance behind him.

In her bed, Lemrina seethed.

She could not get out of the bed on her own. Someone would have to carry her out and place her manually in her wheelchair. Whatever Saazbaum had intended when he pointed the gun at her, his action had served as a stark reminder of her helplessness.

She was still shaking in fear and fury when, fifteen minutes later, Slaine opened the door. "Everything is safe now, Your Highness," he said gently.

"Everything is _not _safe!" Lemrina snapped at him. "How could you all be so incompetent?"

Slaine blinked several times, evidently taken aback. "Er, well, I-"

"Oh, never mind," Lemrina said irritably. She could feel her headache coming back. "Get me out of here, Slaine."

"Yes, of course, Your Highness."

Slaine peeled the blankets away and picked her up in his arms. He did it so easily, like she was just a flimsy doll.

"By the way, it's best if you don't come out on the deck yet," Slaine said as he carefully placed her in the wheelchair beside the bed. "Things are still a bit hectic up there."

"…and there's a possibility of another attack, right?"

"Well, yes," Slaine admitted. "That's why, for your protection-"

Lemrina interrupted him. "Oh, what do you know about anything?" She clenched her fists against the armrests of her wheelchair. "You can fight. You can pilot a Kataphrakt. I bet you've always been good with those things…"

"That's not true at all, Princess Lemrina."

She frowned at him. "What?"

With a slight, strained smile, Slaine explained. "I never learned how to pilot a Kataphrakt until after my father died. I never handled a gun either. I only learned those things because Count Cruhteo wanted me to… so that I could be useful."

This was a surprise. "Then… you were helpless?"

"Very much so." Then he hesitated before continuing. "Please listen to me, Your Highness. Even if you cannot fight, there are other ways to be strong."

But Count Saazbaum had the resources and the intelligence. If there were other ways to be strong, then he had them as well. Lemrina was only a single girl, a crippled princess locked away in her ivory tower. She could not forget the feel of the count's gun against her forehead.

Slaine was reaching out for the door, but Lemrina suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Do you respect me, Slaine?" she asked quietly.

The knight turned his full attention to her.

"Yes," Slaine responded earnestly. "I do."

He did not seem to be lying. He had not hesitated a moment when he spoke.

Lemrina paused for a moment and thought hard. A crazy idea had suddenly sprouted in her mind. Slaine looked at her expectantly.

"Then," she said finally, knowing that she could not keep her knight waiting. "Will you betray Count Saazbaum for me?"

* * *

As it turned out, the Terrans had not succeeded in laying a scratch on the Martian ship. They had been driven off while they were still about 70 kilometres away. It was almost as if the Terrans hadn't actually wanted to engage in pitched combat in the first place.

It seemed that when it came to the result of individual battles, Martian technology really did have no peer. The ship was equipped with ballistic missiles, each one of them capable of levelling a mountain. Additionally, the MIRVs were Aldnoah-powered, which made them far more destructive than the strongest missiles wielded by the Terrans. With the Kataphrakts circling overhead equipped with Anti-Submarine sensors, the ship (codename: ANGELWING) was comparable to a Landing Castle in terms of defensive power.

Lemrina spent a good deal of time wheeling herself around the ship and talking to the engineers, trying to understand how these things worked. A lot of the terminology and acronyms went right over her head, but now was as good a time to learn them as any. She was not allowed on the outer deck for her safety, but as it turned out, the inner deck of a warship was a civilisation of its own.

The men all seemed to be busy with something, whether it was fixing up some piece of equipment or patrolling the hallways. Having lived on the moon base for much of her life, Lemrina was used to these sorts of conditions, but it was much more compact here. There was barely enough room in the hallways for her to wheel through without bumping into somebody.

Once she had finished exploring the inner deck, she returned to her room and asked for Count Barouhcruz to visit her.

The count came right away, evidently puzzled that the princess would ask to see him directly.

"Sit down," said Lemrina when the count walked in through the door.

Barouhcruz sat down on the sofa and was just about to open his mouth when the princess interrupted him.

"I want you to tell me how the war situation is really going," Lemrina said.

Barouhcruz blinked.

"I'm sick of being spoonfed lies by you counts wanting to make yourselves look good," Lemrina went on. "I know that our technology is strong. I've seen that for myself. So why then were we attacked by the UFE? I thought these waters should have been cleared of enemy boats."

She looked at Barouhcruz probingly. She had taken a chance with him, knowing that he was allied with Saazbaum. Yet right from the beginning, she had sensed that he knew things - sensible things - that she did not.

"It's a more delicate situation than that…" Barouhcruz said.

"I want all the details."

Barouhcruz cleared his throat. It was clear he was debating with himself about how much to tell the princess.

Finally, he said, "The mainland has been taken, but Okinawa remains with Earth."

"Okinawa…" Lemrina opened up the map on her tablet and found the island called Okinawa. It was located southwest of Japan, an island so small you wouldn't notice it unless you were actively looking for it.

"Okinawa contains a high concentration of military bases," Barouhcruz explained. "Most of those are owned by the United States of America."

"The United States…?"

"That's right. The United Forces of Earth is drawn from all of the planet's militia, but the United States of America boasts the strongest individual army, second only to Russia."

Unlike the majority of his fellow Martians, Barouhcruz had spent some time researching his enemies and did not see them as a homogeneous group.

"Is this why the Americas haven't been taken yet?" Lemrina asked.

"The U.S. is still far inferior to Vers, princess." Despite his cautious nature, Barouhcruz was not exempt from Martian arrogance. "The problem is that America's landmass is huge. The U.S. army has been able to pick off the Landing Castles that have attacked there one by one."

"So what you're saying is that America can't be taken, even with our superior technology."

Barouhcruz looked somewhat abashed. "Well… yes," he admitted.

"And, contrary to your expectations, the Terrans has located our position from their Okinawan base. In other words, it could very well be possible that they've cracked our naval code."

"I can't believe you're only fourteen…" Barouhcruz muttered.

Lemrina sighed. Ordinarily, she might have relished the praise, but right now, she had other things to think about. "It's not me who's smart - it's you counts who are stupid. If those Terrans have the technological disadvantage, of course they're going to think of ways to compensate."

Count Saazbaum ought to know that better than anyone. He had lost his Landing Castle to the Terrans.

Taking that into account, then his actions right now meant that-

"So what are you proposing to do, Your Highness?" Barouhcruz asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"There are certain things I want to confirm first," Lemrina declared. "For instance, who owns Japan?"

Now Barouhcruz was starting to look distinctly uneasy. "That… well…"

"The knights are still fighting over themselves about it, aren't they?"

"Well, yes," Barouhcruz admitted.

"My goodness, we're getting nowhere fast with this invasion." And of course she had to learn about this after she had come to Earth. The pride of the Orbital Knights had not permitted the truth to be told. "That means I have to make a decision soon, doesn't it?"

Barouhcruz looked at her as if the answer was slowly dawning on him. "You mean…"

"Yes…" Lemrina looked down at her useless feet as she spoke. She thought of all the things Saazbaum had told her and all the things he had neglected to tell her. "When I come to Japan, I'll have to acknowledge who owns it. That's the real test."

She took a deep breath.

"I want you to back me up in my decision, Count Barouhcruz. Do that and I will make sure to reward you later. Do you agree to that?"

He smiled and bowed to her. Whether it was duty or respect that prompted his response, she did not know, but perhaps it hardly mattered.

"Yes, Your Highness."

* * *

Only when the boat had arrived on the shores of Yokohoma was Lemrina allowed to see the light of day. Slaine was busy patrolling the area in his Kataphrakt, so Harklight was the one who pushed her wheelchair outside.

"Sir Harklight, is this your first time on Earth?" Lemrina asked him.

Harklight said that it was.

"If I recall correctly, you were born into the third class," Lemrina observed casually.

As a man born without privileges, Harklight had seen as little of the outside world as Lemrina had.

"That's right," Harklight said again with a nod.

Then he opened the door and led her into the open, blue world.

Nothing Saazbaum said could have prepared her for the sight Lemrina saw. The port of Yokohama was a wreck, surrounded by dilapidated buildings only half-repaired after all these months of occupation. Mountains of rubble remained on the sides of the roads. Everywhere Lemrina looked, the scars of destruction lay stark and raw.

Yet the sky itself was blue. So blue it was almost blinding in its brilliance.

Lemrina had seen the pictures, but the real thing was quite a different thing altogether. You could get lost staring at the sky all day. Lemrina could feel a sea breeze against her cheek and shivered against its touch.

"Wow…" Harklight muttered beside her, evidently impressed with the sensation as well.

There was not much time to admire the new world because a group of military men were standing around the port, waiting for Lemrina's arrival.

A pudgy middle-aged man bowed before her. Most of the Orbital Knights Lemrina had encountered so far had been sprightly and fit, even Saazbaum who was in his forties, so it struck her immediately that the man in front of her was not accustomed to battle.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness Princess Lemrina," the pudgy count said as he drew himself up with a smile. "I am Siegmond of the thirty-seven clans. I am the governor of Japan."

He wasn't necessarily an unattractive older man - he did have a rather distinguished, bourgeois look about him - but his smile did not reach his eyes. Lemrina, who was used to this, smiled back in a similar fashion.

"It is a pleasure to meet you too," she said with a nod. "And who is this beside you? Is he a governor as well?"

Count Siegmond winced at the question, but only for the briefest of moments.

"This is General Young. He has helped maintain law and order in the territory," the count explained smoothly.

General Young was a giant who towered over Count Siegmond and Lemrina. He had crinkling blue eyes and auburn hair. He seemed to be in his thirties. Unlike the count, he was dressed in the same grey uniform Slaine wore. On top of that, he had something of a primal look about him. Not savage, but like a proud lion in a man's clothing.

General Young bowed crisply in Lemrina's direction. "It's an honour, Your Highness."

After that, the general did not get a word in. Count Siegmond spoke the whole time, nattering on about all his wonderful policies and how safe and sanitary it would be to stage a tourney here. Lemrina was used to this sort of talk. While she was too cautious to tune it out completely, she only half-listened to it, preferring to focus her attention on her surroundings instead.

It did not take long to spot Count Siegmond's residence in the distance. The count's pearly white estate was the only building that shone in opulence amid the drab, grey ruins of Yokohama. Lemrina noted that there were no Terrans to be seen. Only Vers soldiers walked around in their uniforms, evidently busy with the rebuilding effort. Many of the roads were occupied, and whenever Lemrina and the others passed through, the soldiers hastily scurried to the side of the road and saluted. Lemrina noticed that many of them directed their salutes not towards her or Count Siegmond but at General Young.

Once they were inside Count Siegmond's lavish estate, seated in the dining room, Lemrina learned the full story of what had happened after the war had begun.

After Baron Trillram had died in the early days of the invasion, his beneficiary Count Siegmond, a close friend of Count Cruhteo's, had assumed the role of governor. But he had only arrived several weeks ago, long after the settlement had been completed. Most of the remaining Terrans had fled the area by now, and those that remained were kept under strict watch by the Vers troops. Sir Young, who had fought on Earth since the very first day of the invasion, had taken responsibility for all of this. He had been awarded the rank of general some days before Count Siegmond had arrived.

"You're not planning to participate in the tourney yourself, are you?" Lemrina asked Count Siegmond.

Count Siegmond and General Young sat at opposite ends of the table, not meeting each other's eyes. Lemrina sat with Marylcian to her left and Barouhcruz to her right. Opposite her was Count Saazbaum. The rest of the table was filled with men Lemrina was not personally acquainted with. Some were counts who had arrived in Japan early for the upcoming tourney; others were General Young's handpicked troops.

If Lemrina had to judge, about half the room was nobility. The other half consisted of low-ranked soldiers. It was a rather shocking proportion, but nobody commented on this verbally.

"Me? Fight in the tourney? I'm a bit old for that," said Count Siegmon with a laugh. "It honours me just to serve you and make this land a safe place for you to be in."

"And what about General Young?" Lemrina asked sweetly.

She noticed Count Marylcian frown beside her. The others kept a level face.

General Young opened his mouth when Count Siegmond interrupted him.

"He is not an Orbital Knight. How can a commoner-born man fight for your hand?"

"Sir Troyard is fighting," Lemrina pointed out. "And he's a Terran."

It was perhaps fortunate that Slaine was not present in the room at that moment, because every single person scowled, save for Saazbaum.

"Of course Sir Troyard has the right," said Saazbaum. "He is my adopted son."

For a moment, Lemrina winced, remembering what she had asked Slaine to do for her sake.

But she could not let these thoughts distract her from the conversation at hand.

"Right," said Lemrina. "Despite his lowly status, his dedication in battle has made him a worthy knight of this realm."

As she spoke, she looked at General Young. His face was naturally predisposed for stoicism, but that didn't mean he was fluent in the language of court politics. At least he understood the implications of this particular conversation readily enough. He was at the center of it, after all.

Their eyes met.

_I'll cast my lot with you, _Lemrina told him silently.

He smiled.

Satisfied with his non-verbal response, Lemrina leaned back in her chair and scanned her eyes over the others. Everyone was gazing at her intently. Count Siegmond in particular could barely restrain his fury.

"In these times of war, merit counts more than rank," Lemrina declared. "I could hardly reward General Young's good deeds by denying him his right to fight. I hereby give him permission to enter the tourney. I have already said I am only interested in marrying the strongest knight. I don't care if he's a commoner or a Terran."

The others at the table might have expected something like this, but the words had come out much more bluntly than Lemrina had rehearsed them in her head. No wonder everyone else looked shell-shocked.

"Hurry and get me a sword. I'll knight him here and now," she announced, trying to sound less like a fourteen-year-old girl and more like a princess.

At that moment, Barouhcruz stood up. He drew his decorative sword out of his belt. "Will this suffice, Your Highness?"

Lemrina took the sword gingerly by the handle. It felt awkward and clumsy in her hands, not to mention rather heavy. But if she used both hands to grip it, she could make up for her lack of arm strength.

"Come," she said, nodding to General Young imperiously. He obliged and knelt before her. Even though he was a grown man almost twice her size, he was at her mercy.

As she lifted the sword, Lemrina could not help but wonder if she was doing the right thing. Perhaps it was only natural that she would second-guess herself. Every move she made would have consequences beyond her own imagining. She could feel the weight of that truth as surely as she could feel the weight of the sword.

She glanced at Saazbaum. His mouth was drawn into a grim line… almost as if he was disappointed.

Just what did that disappointment mean?

Lemrina would ordinarily have let her mind wander, but she had to keep her hand steady. She could not hold the sword steady forever. She had to move her arm or risk letting go entirely.

"I hereby dub you an Orbital Knight and the rightful successor of Baron Trillram," Lemrina uttered firmly.

Grand words, but they were short and quick to the point. Nevertheless, as soon as the words left her mouth, a sense of indefatigable exhaustion came over her. Lemrina silently handed the sword back to Barouhcruz and sank back into her chair.

A silence fell over the room, strained and tentative.

Then, one by one, each of General Young's attendants broke into applause.

* * *

It was just as Slaine said.

When Lemrina told him to betray Count Saazbaum for her, his eyes widened in shock momentarily, but soon enough he thought things through and shook his head.

"I cannot betray the count directly. That would jeopardise your life and mine," he uttered seriously. He had a point. It was Count Saazbaum's backing that protected him from all the Martians who hated him. "However," he went on, meeting her eyes. "I can tell you what he is planning."

"Tell me, then."

Slaine took a deep breath. "He plans to unify the Orbital Knights and overthrow the Vers dynasty."

Lemrina frowned. She had expected something like that.

Slaine went on. "He wants to bring prosperity to Mars."

Lemrina made an impatient noise. "I don't care about his motives. Does this mean he wants me dead?"

How strange when it was Saazbaum who had rescued her from a life of poverty after her family died. Either live as a bastard princess or die on the streets… those had been her only two choices…

"I don't think so," Slaine replied. "If he wanted you dead, he would have killed you already. He needs the Aldnoah activation factor. My guess is that he wants to establish a puppet government through you."

"What about the tourney?"

"He wants me to fight on his behalf. I suspect he plans to use the opportunity to establish a coalition with the other knights while they are all gathered in one place. No matter who wins, he will win."

Slaine was sharper than he let on, Lemrina realised. He rarely spoke his mind, but when he did, something about his voice - about the way he spoke - made you want to focus your attention on him.

"This is bad news." Lemrina scowled. No wonder Saazbaum had looked so pleased with himself when she had announced the tourney.

"However," Slaine cut in, "I think he faces an uphill battle."

"Why do you say that?"

"The knights are individualistic and proud. It would be like herding cats."

"What are cats?"

"Never mind," said Slaine. "My point is that the knights will not work together easily."

She nodded. She had known that all along. It was what she had been banking on.

"If you were me, what would you do?" she asked suddenly.

Slaine thought about it. "I would go along with Count Saazbaum," he said.

"…what?"

Was he even speaking English?

"If the knights worked together, the war will end quickly."

Slaine had mentioned that before, when she had eavesdropped on him. "But I can't do that," she insisted. "I don't want to become a puppet!"

She took back what she thought about Slaine being smart. He was a complete and utter moron.

Slaine shook his head. "You can use your influence to unite the knights under one banner. Surely that is just."

"How can you be so smart and miss the point entirely?" Lemrina said irritably. "Surely you don't _agree _with Count Saazbaum."

Slaine said nothing.

Lemrina threw her hands up. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you. Listen up, Slaine. I want to be the ruler, not Count Saazbaum. The only way to avoid being exploited is to exploit."

She thought that Slaine intended to remain silent even now, but then he opened his mouth and muttered, "So it is true. We cannot coexist…"

"Slaine?"

The knight looked up and shook his head. "Oh, never mind," he said, though a sad smile still remained on his lips. Then, after some thought, he said, "Maybe there is a way."

"A way for what?"

"A way to oppose Count Saazbaum's power while still fighting for peace."

She leaned closer, her interest piqued. "Tell me more, Slaine."

They were talking in hushed whispers now, their faces so close an onlooker would have thought they were intimate. Slaine was anxious and hesitant, but Lemrina succeeded in coaxing the information out of him. He did what she asked, because she was a princess and he was her knight.

That was how Lemrina learned about General Young.

* * *

Everything went smoothly after the knighting, perhaps too smoothly if all was said and done. Predictably enough, Sir Young addressed her warmly and swore his loyalty to her a thousand times over. The general's handpicked men, who were in charge of guarding the estate, celebrated with a feast and drinks. In the midst of the jubilations, none of the Orbital Knights could afford to look dour, so there wasn't any drama.

Harklight in particular was very impressed.

"Your actions were very inspiring, Your Highness," he told her in no uncertain terms after the dinner.

Harklight had been waiting outside the door the whole time the knighting took place, so he was among the very first to hear about it. Lemrina would never forget the way his expression swelled with hope and pride.

In truth, Lemrina had not really thought about the plight of commoners at the time, but when she saw Harklight smile so openly at her, she knew at once that she had made an ally for life in the manservant. As a commoner-born man, Harklight only saw her actions as an act of kindness towards the peasantry. Perhaps commoners, in their simple and transparent ways, were much easier to handle than those fickle-minded counts.

"Perhaps I shall knight you too one of these days, Harklight," Lemrina mused aloud.

"That would be an honour far beyond my deserving," Harklight replied, though he could not keep the joy out of his voice. "You could not have picked a better man to favour than General Young."

"Why is that?"

"He's a veteran from the First Earth-Mars War," Harklight explained. "When it comes to sheer skill piloting a Kataphrakt, I believe he is greater than even the highest of nobles."

Lemrina blinked.

"You mean to say… that he is likely to win the tourney?" She had not even considered such a possibility.

"Anything could happen in the tourney." Harklight seemed to backtrack somewhat. "Yet still, I would place my money and faith in him," he admitted.

"I see…" Lemrina said slowly. It occurred to her that she needed to think this through.

At that moment, Count Siegmond's servants came to take her to her bedroom. With a final bow, Harklight bowed and left her alone.

Of course, Lemrina knew that she was not really alone. She was being monitored by cameras at every juncture - all for her protection, of course.

_A bird in a cage._

And yet, despite all that, she had managed to change her fate. As Lemrina lay in her bed staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, she held fast to that comfortable-sounding notion. If she could influence the outcome of the tourney, then it was possible she could change the system of Vers itself. Maybe she could finally protect herself.

Maybe… perhaps… hypothetically speaking…

_(And Slaine…? What about Slaine…?)_

There was no answer to the endless questions and possibilities swirling in her mind. Lemrina went to sleep anxious and nervous and hopeful for the future like she had never been before.

She must have dozed fitfully for a few hours, because when she heard a rap on the door, it was still totally dark.

"Who is it?" Lemrina spoke into the darkness, suddenly afraid. Her body still remembered the feel of Saazbaum's gun against her forehead. She had been alone at that time too…

"…it's me," came a familiar, soothing voice. "It's urgent. May I come in?"

"A-all right," said Lemrina shakily, sitting up.

Slaine walked into the bedroom and turned on the lights. There was a grim look on his face.

In that moment, Lemrina vaguely understood that something had gone terribly wrong, but she could never have anticipated what Slaine said next.

"Your Highness, we must go quickly. I must take you to safety."

"Safety…? I thought this place was safe." Lemrina's heart beat fast in her ribcage. "I mean, General Young is-"

"General Young is dead," Slaine said.

For a moment, Lemrina did not think she had heard him properly.

"…what?"

"He was killed by Japanese terrorists. We must get back on board the ship."

"N-no… It couldn't be…"

It was convenient. Much too convenient.

Didn't Harklight just tell her General Young was a skilled soldier? How could he get killed so suddenly? Of course, there was no pointing even speculating about it. She already knew the answer.

It was just like when her sister died.

"Those monsters…" Lemrina whispered, horrified.

Slaine looked at her with eyes of sadness and pity. Perhaps if he had not been a knight and she a princess, he might have comforted her with his touch.

"That is the way of war," he said quietly.

"No…" Lemrina repeated herself, shaking her head frantically.

It didn't have to be this way. It _shouldn't _be this way.

General Young was responsible for keeping law and order. His men loved and followed him. And now he had been cut down, because he was a commoner who had gained too much power.

…and who was the one who had given him that power?

The cold finger of death brushed against Lemrina's heart.

"_Remember, princess. When you lead a country in war, you put your life on the line."_

"_You know, but you do not understand."_

Oh, but now she did.

The terror carved its way into every inch of her mind, until nothing but high-pitched static rang between her ears.

"I was a fool," Lemrina whispered bitterly as she turned her eyes away from Slaine and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. "A naïve fool."

Right from the very beginning, she'd had no power at all.

It was merely an illusion.

Through her words and actions, she had killed a man.

The terror gripped her soul once again. Lemrina clutched her heart and breathed heavily. She could feel icy cold sweat dripping off her skin.

Slaine came over to her bed. She could sense him standing over her, though she did not turn to look at him. Her body was immobile; she could not move her feet. "We have to go now, Your Highness," he insisted once again. "Please."

"Why? Those Japanese terrorists never attacked. I'm not in any _real _danger."

"You will be soon."

Lemrina tried to get her head around what Slaine said. Yet she simply could not fathom what would happen from now. For all the resourcefulness she had poured into her plotting, it all failed her now.

Not waiting for a response any longer, Slaine picked her up from the bed. She could feel his arms around her but could do nothing to fend them off.

"Soon, the streets will be awash with innocent blood once again…" he said heavily, more to himself than to her. "It's best if you're out of the way when that happens."

When she looked into his eyes, she could see the specter of a thousand ghastly memories. He was shaking where he stood, even as he kept his mouth firm and his gaze straight. He had seen things she could never imagine.

Something in her heart twinged. "Slaine…"

"I'm sorry that it had to come to this." His grip around her tightened. "I swear I will protect you."

He was not looking at her. He was speaking to someone who was not her, even if his words were spoken against her ears.

But for some reason, she chose that moment to believe the lie - or the half-truth, however she wanted to see it.

There was nothing left to believe in, after all.

"Yes, Slaine…" she breathed, and clutched her hands helplessly against the knight's uniform. She clenched all the emotions she had never been able to express into her tiny, feeble fingers. _Oh, Slaine. Oh, Asseylum… _"Take me somewhere far away… I command you…"

She had never wanted to be a part of this mess.

"Yes, Your Highness."

He did what she asked, because she was a princess and he was her knight. Whether it was duty or something else that bound them, she could not say. She could only dread the moment he let go.

He took her to the ship, cradling her securely in his arms the whole time. Lemrina did not believe that any harm would befall her as long as she remained in Slaine's arms. And so she stayed by his side and he by hers, as if they were the only two people in the world.

* * *

Soon after that, the massacres began.

**END PART ONE**

**Author's note: **I hope you've enjoyed the story so far! Part two will change perspective to another character. The plot will only become more complex and intricate from here, so it will probably take longer to write part two.

For now, I'll leave you with some thoughts I had as I wrote this story.

"The personal is political." You might be familiar with these words. Right from the beginning, I wanted to write a story based around this concept. As a "space opera", I felt that the setting of Aldnoah Zero suited the kind of story I wanted to write.

The idea behind this story is to build on the themes present in the anime. As I alluded to before, this story will have multiple parts, each focusing on a different perspective and advancing the plot in distinct ways. But one thing I decided on from the beginning was to focus more on relationships and political intrigues. That doesn't mean there will be _no _action in the story. I just wanted to make politics interesting since it's not a subject that fanfiction authors tackle often.

Because the emphasis of this story is different from the anime, I had to change subtle details to make it work. Lemrina, Saazbaum and Slaine all have different roles and relationships, and the timeline is more compressed than the anime. (For example, Saazbaum adopted Slaine much earlier in this story.) And, of course, killing off Inaho and Asseylum was a significant move with many implications.

Anyway, till next time, readers!


	6. II) Shooting Star

**PART TWO: THE UNITED FORCES OF EARTH**

**05\. Shooting Star**

Rayet reloaded her MP7A1 and climbed to her feet. The enemy was within range. She was invisible to them from her position, just as they were invisible to her, but it was all right - she could shoot at them until they died.

Around her, the rattle of gunfire roared unceasingly. It was so cacophonous that even much later when everything was still and dead she would hear it ringing incessantly in her ears. Right now, though, it was just part of the background. The trick with war was blocking out all the white noise.

Dashing out from under her cover, Rayet cocked her gun. The submachine gun was set on automatic fire; she did not bother pausing to take aim. The rain of bullets caused dirt on the ground to fly. If Rayet did not have goggles over her eyes, she would probably have been temporarily blinded by the spray.

She could not tell if her bullets had hit the enemy or not. She hoped they had. Even better if the enemy's brains splattered. But there was no time to worry about the particulars. Rayet dived behind a crag and looked up sharply at the sky.

The grey heavens sat dark and heavy, looking almost as if they were about to fall any minute. As far as Rayet was concerned, the heavens had already fallen twice. Right now, a howling wind whipped through the vicinity, accompanied by light hail. Visibility was extremely low. Even with the goggles, Rayet had to grope around somewhat blindly to find her footing.

Somewhere behind her, a mine exploded. Rayet ducked her head and winced as the shock impact rocked her sharply.

At that moment, her earpiece buzzed with static. She strained her ears to hear the command. "Fall back! Get into cover!"

"Tch." Rayet grimaced, but returned to her position in the trench anyway. She was in no hurry to die.

The trench offered shelter from the elements, but only in limited measure. The hail continue to spit on Rayet's body, and the ground was icy cold and slippery. The only way to avoid the worst of it was to get inside the manhole. Rayet got on her hands and knees and crawled through the narrow opening. Even as one of the smaller members of the platoon, she managed this with a bit of difficulty.

The inside of the manhole was blissfully dry, though it smelled of oil and tobacco and it was impossible to escape the pervasive chill entirely. But if Rayet kept crawling, she would find warmth soon. The manhole was connected to a network of underground tunnels; the deeper you delved, the more humid it got.

After Rayet had crawled for several meters, her shoulders bumping against the gravelly walls, the tunnel's mouth widened. Rayet took off her goggles. She had reached the barracks.

Like the rest of the tunnel, the barracks were cramped and stuffy. Because of the lack of room, the soldiers huddled against each other for warmth and also, perhaps, for camaraderie. A good deal of them certainly didn't _look _like soldiers. A full quarter of the thirty or so soldiers present consisted of women or children. All of them were holding a weapon of some sort. One little boy, who looked about ten, clutched an assault rifle like it was a teddy bear keeping him safe.

In the middle of the room warming his hands beside a small tin heater sat the platoon leader, Lieutenant Vadim Savchuk. He wasn't really a lieutenant in a formal sense, but everyone called him 'Lieutenant' anyway because no one else had stepped up for the role.

Lieutenant Vadim Savchuk was a young man in his mid-twenties with prematurely grey hair and stubble. He seemed to have a great deal of affection for noisy metal music since he was always playing it through his cell phone speakers during his off-duty moments. Today, he wasn't doing that, though. As he warmed his hands, he barked some orders into a radio set, looking rather bewildered and frustrated over something.

It was no unusual sight. Rather, it was unusual if things didn't go out of hand during a war. Rayet plopped herself in the corner and wrapped her body in a thin blanket. She figured she could catch a few moments of shuteye until her next orders came.

Unfortunately, she had only closed her eyes for a few fleeting moments when the lieutenant walked over to her. Rayet's eyes flickered open with annoyance. "What is it?" she demanded.

Rayet was one of the few soldiers in this platoon with more than a few months of combat experience under her belt. Comparatively speaking, she was a veteran of the highest order. But she made it a point not to accept any position of authority. It was simply too much bother.

That didn't stop the lieutenant from consulting with her whenever things went slightly awry. He was just a baker's apprentice when the war broke out.

"Listen," said Savchuk. "There's been a development."

"Oh?" Rayet hugged her MP7A1 against her chest.

"A Martian pod is on course to land two hundred meters southwest from here."

"Enemy reinforcements?"

For several weeks now, a stalemate had ensued between Terran guerilla forces and the Vers army. The Terrans had dug an elaborate system of tunnels in an attempt to out-manoeuvre and encircle the Martians, who mostly used Kataphrakts and air crafts unsuited for Ukrainian weather. Any time the Martians performed an air raid, the Terrans would just relocate. The strategy was to force them into a battle of attrition and pick them off with hit-and-run tactics.

The appearance of a pod possibly meant that the Martians were attempting to resupply their diminished unit. That was the first conclusion Rayet came to.

But the lieutenant shook his head. "It's more complicated than that. The pod was sending out distress signals intended for us."

"It's got to be a trap," Rayet said immediately.

Yet she could see the hesitation on the young lieutenant's face. Rayet could see he was torn about what to do: should he order the troops to relocate in anticipation of a trap or attempt to capture the pod for the information and supplies that could be inside?

Perhaps a more experienced platoon could attempt the latter, but many of the "soldiers" had only been around for a few weeks and were only good for defending the trenches, not launching attacks.

But at the same time, this was a golden opportunity. The Martians weren't the only ones who were starving. Rayet's stomach grumbled and she glanced at the gaunt faces of the young men, women and children around her. They wouldn't have joined the platoon in the first place if the Martians hadn't attacked the towns in an attempt to scavenge for food.

_Risking all to gain all…_ Rayet could see the lieutenant was in a difficult position. He knew many of the townsfolk personally and would do anything to keep them safe and fed.

Rayet sighed and stood up. "I'll go."

A flicker of relief passed through Savchuk's face, but the anxiety remained fixed on his features. "It's dangerous."

"It's just a pod, right? There's no room to fit more than one person. If I don't come back by sundown, relocate the troops."

Savchuk hesitated, still uncertain about the burden of his command. But eventually, he nodded. She was a stranger to him in all things except for name. That made the sacrifice easier. "All right, we're counting on you, Rayet."

With a curt nod, Rayet shed the blanket and clutched her gun tightly. She crawled back into the tunnel she had entered from, not once looking behind her.

Rayet could not say that she _liked _the people around her. At least, she did not know them. They did not speak English. Once, one of the women had thrown a blanket around Rayet, perhaps because she had noticed that Rayet was shivering alone. But that wasn't really communication, because no matter how much Rayet insisted that she did not need the blanket, the woman would not take it back.

Only Savchuk spoke to Rayet. He was fluent in English because he had studied in Canada for a few years. When he asked her where she was from, she said, "Russia." Which was technically true - she had just been there. Savchuk did not ask where she had come from before that or who her parents were. It was better that way.

"Thank you," Savchuk said behind her.

"There's nothing to thank me for," said Rayet as she lowered her hood over her head.

Outside the tunnels, the ill weather had not abated. If anything, the hail seemed to have intensified. Glancing through the vision scope poking out over the trench, Rayet observed that nobody was out on the field - friend or foe. It seemed the Martians had temporarily retreated after the earlier skirmish.

Rayet turned the scope southwest. Nothing appeared to have landed yet, though it was probably only a matter of minutes. Rayet contented herself with watching and waiting for now.

Sure enough, the clouds slowly parted, allowing a sliver of sunlight to pass through. At almost the very same moment, the Martian pod fell through the clouds and picked up speed as it fell to Earth. It looked like a black dome from the distance Rayet was watching.

Rayet waited for five whole minutes after the pod fell, but no Martians appeared over the horizon and the pod remained closed. After taking a deep breath, Rayet climbed out of the trench. Her submachine gun was slung over her back and her pockets were stocked with grenades. Around her belt hung a handgun and a jungle knife. But none of these things would protect her from any bullets. She could only kill, not prevent herself from being killed.

_One… two… three…_

Each second passed agonisingly slowly as Rayet made her way across the wet and slippery field, all the while pelted by hail and rain. Just as she reached her destination without event, the pod let out a hum and the hatch began to open. Startled, Rayet whipped out her handgun and pointed it directly at the pod.

But no enemy greeted her. There was no sound from inside the pod. When the hatch opened, it revealed the sight of a sleeping girl in a black maid's uniform.

Rayet blinked in surprise.

"Well, well, who do we have here?" she asked aloud.

The sound of her voice must have caused the sleeping girl to stir. "Huh…? Who…?" the girl asked groggily, looking up at Rayet and not recognising her for a moment.

Rayet wasn't sure what to do with her gun at this point. She half-lowered it, and then wondered vaguely why she did that.

Finally, the girl rubbed her eyes and got a proper look at Rayet. "It's you!" she exclaimed.

"Thought you were captured by the Martians," said Rayet.

"I _was_, but…" The maid Eddelrittuo shook her head as if suddenly remembering something more urgent. "Is this the UFE HQ?"

"Far from it. We're in eastern Ukraine."

"Wha…?"

"In any case, you're in the middle of a battlefield here. You're lucky the enemy's retreated for now. Come on, let's go."

Rayet put away her gun and grabbed Eddelrittuo's hand. Just as she did, she heard yells and gunfire behind her.

"Shit!"

On instinct, Rayet dived into pod and closed the hatch forcefully, avoiding the enemy attack. Eddelrittuo let out a squeak of alarm. The pod was so tiny and cramped that the two girls had no choice but to lay on top of each other.

"Get off me, you ruffian!" Eddelrittuo gasped, struggling beneath Rayet.

"Quiet," said Rayet. She craned her neck and peered at the pod's control panel.

It appeared that the pod had no ignition left, so it was impossible to launch it again. As a vehicle intended solely for transport, it held no weapons. There was also no way of seeing outside. Rayet and Eddelrittuo were effectively trapped. Rayet could open the hatch, but they would just be killed straight away.

"Damn it," Rayet muttered.

"What's going on?" Eddelrittuo's voice quivered with fear.

"I don't know. War's a bit crazy."

After that, the two of them fell silent. Rayet could hear gunfire outside. It sounded disturbingly close to the pod. Abruptly, Rayet came to a decision.

"Cover your ears," she said, getting out her submachine gun.

"You're not planning to-"

Rayet thrust her elbow against the control panel, forcing the hatch to open one last time.

Just as Rayet anticipated, there was a Martian standing right outside the hatch. Rayet could see his face clearly. A young guy, maybe twenty-five or so. He was ready to shoot, but Rayet was readier.

_Ratatatatatatatatatatat-_

The Martian fell instantly.

There was something striking about seeing someone die from close range. Rayet could see the blood spurting out from each of the man's individual wounds. He stumbled back half a step and then slipped and fell into the snow. His mouth was agape and his eyes stared listlessly at the grey sky.

She had killed one of the Martians. She could kill them all.

"Stay here," Rayet commanded Eddelrittuo.

She was just reaching for a hand grenade when Eddelrittuo grabbed her by the arm. "You don't have to be so reckless!" the maid insisted.

"I have no choice," Rayet said grimly.

"No, I mean-"

At that moment, another person appeared at the hatch. Reflexively, Rayet snarled and reached for her gun again. This time, she was not fast enough.

A voice called out to her. "You're safe now, Rayet. Come down."

It was Lieutenant Vadim Savchuk.

It was Rayet's turn to let out a noise of surprise. "What are _you _doing here?"

"We couldn't leave you to fight alone." The lieutenant smiled. "You're one of us, Rayet."

"Hmph." Rayet was still somewhat disgruntled, but she let her hand fell.

It appeared that Savchuk had experienced a change of heart. That sort of kindness made Rayet feel sick in her mouth. She could not meet his eyes.

"We'll get the girl to safety," Savchuk went on, his eyes falling on Eddelrittuo. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," Eddelrittuo said stiffly.

Fifteen minutes later, Rayet was back in the tunnels. Instead of going to the barracks, they made for the lieutenant's private quarters, which was currently unoccupied. It wasn't much bigger than the Martian pod, but there was a comfy bunk bed to sit on.

"Excuse me," Eddelrittuo said to the lieutenant as soon as she was alone with him and Rayet. "There's a message I need to convey to the Earth HQ…"

"Start from the beginning," Rayet broke in. "How and why were you in the pod?"

Eddelrittuo took a deep breath and recounted her story.

"…that's why I need to get back to the Deucalion," she finished.

Savchuk listened to all of this with a somewhat perplexed expression. It was clear he didn't even know what the Deucalion was. Eddelrittuo, who had looked at him with eyes full of expectation, was evidently mystified by his reaction.

"It's too bad," Rayet said, causing Eddelrittuo to turn to her sharply. "The Deucalion doesn't exist anymore."

"What?"

"They dismantled the ship. Everyone's been relocated."

"W-why?"

Rayet shrugged. "These things happen. They couldn't get the ship moving again, so they removed the parts."

"Oh, right… Princess Asseylum was…" A cloud of sorrow fell over Eddelrittuo's face. She forced herself to look up again. "But then, how did the ship get back to the base in the first place?"

Rayet closed her eyes.

"Her blood. It was on Kaizuka's body. After the blood dried up, the Aldnoah drive was useless."

Eddelrittuo shivered at the gruesome explanation. "Then… how do I get my message to everyone? You don't know where they are?"

"No."

After the former Deucalion crew was split up, Rayet had wandered alone. At the time, she had technically been under Terran surveillance, but Captain Magbaredge had let her off the hook. Unable to join the United Forces of Earth and lacking a place to belong, Rayet had paved her own way. She had ended up in eastern Ukraine, assisting the guerilla forces there.

"So…" said Eddelrittuo, frowning. "You aren't in contact with the headquarters?"

"No, we aren't," Savchuk answered. "I'm sorry."

He was a good man, Rayet realised. He knew Eddelrittuo had come from Mars, but he was still willing to help her after hearing her story. But he was no real soldier, just a man who could barely protect his fellow townspeople.

Eddelrittuo's face fell.

"Why does it matter?" Rayet asked her bluntly. "Who cares what Martian killed Kaizuka Inaho? They're all the same."

"It wasn't a Martian." Eddelrittuo looked up. "Slaine Troyard is a Terran."

Rayet blinked.

How could a _Terran _work for the Martians?

(_How could a Martian work for the Terrans?_)

Rayet grit her teeth and looked away.

"So what you want to do is get to the Earth HQ, right?" Savchuk asked Eddelrittuo.

"Right. I have to find out what happened to everyone aboard the Deucalion."

Rayet wanted to say, "_It's hopeless. They've all moved on." _But she kept her mouth shut sullenly.

Eddelrittuo looked at Rayet, her eyebrows knitting into a frown. She began to speak, not looking Rayet directly in the eyes. "I guess… I suppose… I'm glad you're all right."

"Huh?"

"You did help me out last time… even though I can't forgive you for what you tried to do to the princess."

At the mention of the word 'princess', Savchuk's eyebrows shot up. "Hang on… do you two have a history?" he asked.

"Something like that," Rayet said curtly. She turned back to Eddelrittuo. "If you think I'll help you, you've got another thing coming. What you want to achieve is just a fool's errand."

As she spoke, she wondered if she was being too harsh. But the words had already left her mouth. There was no taking them back now.

"Then what do you suppose I do?" Eddelrittuo asked quietly. Her fists clenched against her black skirt.

Rayet hesitated. She had no answer to that question.

"Princess Asseylum is gone. I don't have a purpose. The only purpose I have now is to…"

Eddelrittuo stopped there. A tear fell from her eyes and landed on her hand.

Rayet hated tears. She couldn't stand them. She had especially hated the thought of crying when her father died. So she had given herself a purpose.

Rayet looked down at the sobbing Eddelrittuo and hated herself for understanding the source of the maid's tears.

"Stop crying!" Her voice rang out harshly.

Eddelrittuo looked up, startled. Her nose was snotty and her eyes were red.

All of a sudden, Rayet remembered Princess Asseylum's crying face…

"_I will not ask you to forgive me. Nevertheless… I am sorry."_

Come to think of it, Princess Asseylum had only ever wished for peace. That was her purpose.

A foolish purpose, and yet…

"I'll accompany you to the headquarters. If you go out by yourself, you'll just get killed," Rayet said gruffly. "Deliver your message if that's what you want. I won't stop you."

"Rayet…"

Rayet looked down at her feet. She wondered how someone else would see Eddelrittuo's purpose. Was her attachment to that Terran traitor's message nothing but foolish? If so, then how would Rayet look? How would Rayet's purpose look?

Somehow, she found herself thinking of Kaizuka Inaho, the weird Terran boy she had never figured out.

"_You hate our enemies, and those enemies are trying to kill you. But most importantly, you've fought at our side. At the very least, I don't think we're enemies."_

It all sounded very sensible and logical, but where had Kaizuka's oh-so-mighty logic gotten him? An early grave, that was all.

And yet…

"Thank you, Rayet," Eddelrittuo said, cutting off Rayet's thought. When Rayet looked up, the short, diminutive maid was looking straight at her. There were still tears in Eddelrittuo's eyes, but she was not afraid. For a brief moment, Rayet could kid herself into believing that the maid was tall and mighty.

* * *

Lieutenant Savchuk led them to the very edge of the tunnel network. Once they were out of the caves, they would no longer be in the platoon's territory.

"Just crawl out that hole and you'll be out in the open," he said as he handed the two girls a pack of rations. There was enough to last them for several days. "Take care of yourselves."

"Thank you, sir," said Eddelrittuo, who seemed to have gotten much better at thanking people now that Princess Asseylum was gone for good. "We won't ever forget your kindness."

Instead of saying anything, Rayet merely met Savchuk's eyes. He knew as well as she did that she would not return.

Rayet, after all, was alone in the end.

_Perhaps, in another lifetime, we could have been friends._

It was a funny thing to think about someone you had fought beside as an ally. Savchuk smiled at her and Rayet found herself smiling back.

"Take care of your troops," Rayet told him.

"I will," Savchuk promised her.

Rayet never saw him again, but in years to come, she sometimes thought about him, and she always imagined that he had lived and fulfilled his purpose.

When Rayet and Eddelrittuo crawled out the final tunnel, it was dark outside. The night was utterly peaceful, lacking any sign of human noise. It was hard to imagine that the world was at war.

"Look!" Eddelrittuo said suddenly, pointing past the snow-capped trees. "A shooting star!"

The Terrans aboard the Deucalion had told them about shooting stars. Or more like they had told Asseylum, while Rayet crouched alone in the background and listened.

As soon as she spotted the light streaking across the distance, Eddelritto clasped her hands together. "I hope that Princess Asseylum's dream comes true…" she whispered earnestly.

Rayet closed her eyes and thought of her own wish.

_I hope that all the Martians die…_

* * *

**Author's note: **I post notes and extra info about this story on my tumblr, which goes by the name "frogkunlit". So if you're interested in the military-related details, I suggest you check out my tumblr. None of it is essential stuff, though.


	7. II) A Thousand Paper Cranes

**06\. A Thousand Paper Cranes**

In her off-duty moments, Warrant Officer Kaizuka Yuki liked to make paper cranes.

She had never been any great shakes at origami. She had learned it from her little brother who learned it from a book. Long ago, she had resigned herself to the fact that she was simply no good at handling delicate things.

These days, she had nothing better to do than fold paper into clumsy cranes. Their necks jutted out at awkward angles and their wings ended up twisted and bent, doomed never to fly. _Maybe I'll aim for a thousand, _Yuki thought idly as she made them, even though it was completely impossible for someone like her.

At the same time, she couldn't bear to throw away the cranes she had already made. She kept them in a box under her bed next to a small stack of photos, a tablet customised with esoteric science-related apps and a pendant that had fallen near Inaho's body - the sole remainder of her little brother's existence.

Sometimes, when Yuki took out her box to add more cranes, her eyes would fall on those mementos and she would lose all sense of time and place.

At these times, only a sharp knock on the door would wake her out of the trance.

_Tap tap._

"Miss Kaizuka, are you there?" a woman's voice asked briskly.

Yuki brought her hand to her face, checking for stray tears. Sometimes, she found herself crying without even noticing it, but today was not one of these days, mercifully enough.

She pushed the box under the bed and straightened herself up. "Come in," she said, attempting to match the briskness of her caller's tone.

A woman in a white lab coat walked into the room.

"Hi, Miss Kaizuka," she said, smiling.

"Hello, Professor Bridges," Yuki said with a bow, keenly aware of the difference in their positions.

Julie Bridges was a senior scientist from MIT. While she was not a soldier, she was a world-renowned expert on military technology, although you wouldn't know it from looking at her. She was a plump, matronly woman with greying hair and dimples when she smiled. She looked like a middle-aged housewife, but she had never been married.

Yuki was curious why the scientist had come to see her directly. Fortunately, Professor Bridges did not keep her waiting long.

"I have to thank you for bringing the Aldnoah drive here to Okinawa," she said, pronouncing the 'na' in Okinawa with the nasally tone typical of a Midwestern American. "It's been fascinating to study up close."

Yuki smiled. "Have you made any progress?"

"Not much," the American admitted. "Until now we had assumed that Rayregalia activated the Aldnoah through some sort of external trigger. The scientific community was very skeptical about his claim to being 'recognised' by Aldnoah. And after studying the drive for these past few weeks, I have to say that I'm still skeptical."

"What makes you say that?" Yuki's curiosity was piqued.

"This is just a theory, but I think Aldnoah technology reads people's DNA, just like a bardcode reader. If the data matches, the drive activates. Once you've calibrated with the technology, you can control who uses it and who can't. The fact that your brother could activate the drive points towards that theory."

Yuki closed her eyes and remembered the blood splattered across Inaho's face when she found him.

"What else?" she asked, opening her eyes.

"Well, that's all," said the scientist briskly. "Without a key, you can't get into the house. Still, if my theory is correct…" Her expression suddenly darkened. "You said that Princess Asseylum had only a limited understanding of the system? She wasn't hiding anything?"

"That's right. If she knew how to extend her Aldnoah privileges to all of us, she would have, I'm sure. She was that kind of person." Yuki paused to remember Princess Asseylum's kind smile. It was heartbreaking, the idea that someone so young and gentle would suffer such a violent death. "I think she really believed that as a princess, it was her duty to end the war."

"Noblesse Oblige," Professor Bridges commented wryly. Yuki did not understand that phrase, so she just looked at the professor blankly. But Professor Bridges did not explain herself. She merely sighed as if her mind was caught up with something else. "So even the royalty treats the science like magic, huh… At times like these, I really wish Dr. Troyard was still with us."

Another name Yuki did not know. This time, she decided to ask. "Who's that?"

"A former colleague of mine. He was a brilliant man. Crazy, too. He went all the way to Vers to study the Aldnoah system. He's never been back since. I wonder what happened to him."

Yuki hesitated, and then said, "He probably died…"

It wasn't such a hard thing to imagine at times like these.

"That would be an awful shame," Professor Bridges said wistfully. "If there was anyone who could have unravelled the secrets of Aldnoah, it would have been Dr. Troyard. He had a son, too - a cute kid. I wonder how he's doing…"

Yuki got the feeling that Professor Bridges had exhausted the useful information she had to tell her. For a moment, she did not say anything. She appeared to be reminiscing, apparently about more peaceful days. But at length, she bid Yuki a good day and left the room to resume her work.

Still, Yuki was glad that the professor had stopped by to tell her about the research progress. Everything that came out of the worldly professor's mouth sounded fascinating and enlightening to Yuki, who had never been outside Japan until very recently. She got the impression that Inaho would have gotten along very well with her.

When the Deucalion was disassembled, Yuki had begged to remain with the Aldnoah drive. After spending months on the ship, witnessing the Aldnoah's power for herself, she understood loud and clear that the only way to counteract the Martians was to use their own weapons against them. But when the princess disappeared during the battle at the Russian base, presumably now assassinated for real, Yuki had given up hope… until Inaho somehow managed to activate the Aldnoah drive. Even dead, he managed to pull off ridiculous feats.

The only thing he couldn't manage to do was open his eyes again or listen to Yuki when she buried her head against his chest and said sorry over and over again.

After that, Yuki held fast to her conviction that the Aldnoah drive held the key to the war. So when she heard that the Aldnoah drive was to be sent to Okinawa, Yuki demanded that she be sent there too, even if it meant separating from all the friends she had made aboard the ship and all the students she had taught before the war began.

At first, it was difficult adjusting to Okinawa. The drone of aircrafts was never far away, and it was hard to sleep at night. Yuki was not sure whether it was because of the noise, or because her injured left arm was playing up again, or because she kept seeing Inaho's face in her dreams. It was probably a bit of everything.

For several weeks after arriving at Okinawa, Yuki saw no combat. She received regular checkups from the medical experts about her arm and attended briefings and intelligence meetings. Yuki had only been a junior officer at the onset of the war, but because she had fought in Japan, the senior intelligence officers asked her to share her observations at the meetings.

"The Martians don't fight with a coordinated strategy," Yuki explained. "The most effective way of taking them down is to use light weaponry. The Sleipnir, for instance-"

Someone in the audience chuckled and was quickly shushed.

Nevertheless, Yuki lost track of what she was saying. Tongue-tied, she stared helplessly at the grizzled military men in the room.

"What's clear is that we need to upscale to nuclear-grade weapons as quickly as possible," said John Birchingham, one of the hardliners from Washington. "The military training and equipment provided through the JSDF was not sufficient to prevent the Martian forces breaking into civilian lines."

_Not sufficient? _Yuki bristled but said nothing.

It was true that the Martians had wreaked devastation across Japan, but that was because they had concentrated more of their forces there in the wake of the Shinawara incident that had sparked the war. It wasn't because the Japanese forces were inferior. Any fool with a brain could see that.

Another one of the distinguished officers spoke up. "The right thing to do would have been to drop nukes on those Martian as soon as they began their assault."

Yuki could not believe her ears.

"You're jumping to a rash conclusion," Paul Rodney, one of the more moderate voices, broke in. "There are not enough Martians in Japan to justify the civilian deaths. Nuking Japan would be like razing an entire forest in order to cut down a single tree."

"That's a foolish analogy and you know it," John Birchingham responded cuttingly. "The death count will only continue multiplying at this rate if we do not match their technology."

At that moment, Yuki felt as if she had to speak. "Aldnoah is the key to victory. I know it."

That was what Inaho would have said. And Yuki was sure Professor Bridges would have agreed with her.

But nobody listened. Everyone just nodded politely and then resumed what they were talking about.

"We must continue focusing on bringing the refugees to safety," said Paul Rodney.

"It's too late. Our boats and carriers will just get shot down," John Birchingham retorted. "The mainland is beyond salvaging at this point."

_Beyond salvaging?_

"This is the problem with joining an equal pact with the United Forces," the senior intelligence officer went on bitterly. "If it was just Washington making the decisions, we could have got things done a lot faster. But the UN keeps blocking us at every turn. It certainly doesn't help that those darned Martians have jammed the satellites, so we have to rely on old-fashioned telegrams. It just slows down the whole process."

Listening to this talk, it occurred to Yuki that perhaps the Terrans and the Martians were not so different than she had originally assumed.

After another half hour of discussion, the meeting ended. John Birchingham had gotten his way. The intelligence officers decided to write a joint report detailing the urgency of the situation and requesting the use of WMDs.

Warrant Officer Kaizuka Yuki went back to her room and folded another dozen clumsy paper cranes.

* * *

Several days later, Yuki was sent out on her first mission. The radars had detected unknown movement in the seas southeast of Okinawa. A UFE submarine was sent out to investigate, along with an air carrier. Yuki was to protect the air carrier with her Kataphrakt just in case anything happened while they were out at sea.

"How's your arm?" asked Professor Bridges as Yuki was making her way to the port. "Well, you're a professional, so I suppose you'll be all right."

"Yeah," said Yuki, smiling at this display of concern. "I've fought like this before and it was fine." She flexed the robotic frame of her left arm and saluted with her right arm.

Of course, Yuki was good at putting on a smiling face. She'd had long practice at it.

War was not all about blood-pumping battles. Most of the time, it involved standing around waiting for short bursts of frenetic activity. In those long periods of stillness, you had to keep yourself busy somehow. You had to smile. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to stay sane.

For hours, Yuki waited at the tail end of the air carrier, just in case she was needed. The brilliant blue sky held no sign of the enemy, so perhaps today would be an uneventful mission.

Idly, Yuki wondered what was worse - the waiting or the killing.

More out of a desire to keep her hands busy than anything, Yuki placed one of her paper cranes on the control panel and watched it. The bird held no answers, only the tentative promise of a wish.

_If you fold a thousand paper cranes, your wish will come true._

At that moment, her intercom suddenly crackled. "The radars have picked up Martian movement in the waters!"

Yuki jumped to attention, inadvertently crushing the paper crane with her own hands.

Up till now, the Martians had not boasted any sort of naval force - which stood to reason, considering they were invaders from space. But now it was evident that their movements had expanded. They were seeking to control the waters now too.

"What sort of movement?" she asked sharply.

"A single armoured ship. There are also some movements in the air. It could be-" Suddenly, the captain's breath hitched. "-Kataphrakts!"

Yuki surveyed the surroundings. What she saw made her head reel. Not one but _three _giant Kataphrakts were floating in the sky. They were still some miles away but still... how could there be so many?

"Sound the retreat!" the captain roared. "Protect the air carrier!"

No need to say it twice.

Yuki manoeuvred her Kataphrakt to the top of the air carrier and made it crouch. If the enemy still hadn't spotted the air carrier, then perhaps she could do something… She pulled out her precision rifle. As she did, two of the Kataphakts flew towards the water, probably in search for the submarine. They were moving too quickly for Yuki to target, so she focused her attention on the stationary Kataphrakt.

Yuki took aim and fired.

Her aim, assisted by the Areion's auto-targeting system, was right on the mark. The perfect sniping. Her enemy would never see it coming.

…yet before Yuki could blink, the grey Martian Kataphrakt swerved out of the way. It was as if it had predicted that she would shoot before she had pulled the trigger.

Then, before Yuki could fire another shot, the Kataphrakt was speeding towards her.

"I can't believe this!" she exclaimed.

Panic rose in her chest as she swapped her precision rifle for a 75mm cannon. No point in taking aim now. She waved the gun with the cannon running on auto-fire. The Martian Kataphrakt dodged each and every round. As fast as the air carrier flew back towards the base, the Martian Kataphrakt was so much faster.

Did humans even pilot these things?

"Who _are _you?" Yuki yelled into the void, not really expecting an answer.

There was no point fighting. Why did Inaho bother? He might have won a few times, but his luck had not lasted forever. It was all so ridiculous and hopeless. As this thought went through Yuki's mind, her cannon ran out of bullets.

Now it was her turn to die at the hands of a faceless enemy…

And at that moment, against all odds, the pilot of the Martian Kataphrakt responded to her.

"My name is Slaine Troyard," a young man's voice said. The sleek grey Kataphrakt whipped out a gun and shot down the air carrier.

* * *

Yuki was falling.

Ah, now she remembered. When she had first tried to join the army after finishing her military training in high school, Lieutenant Marito had told her, _"You should forget it. There's a difference between getting good grades at military school and being a real soldier."_

She had been furious at the time. How could the lieutenant, who reeked of alcohol half the time, lecture her about what it meant to be a soldier? But after a while, she had come to understand him better. There was no glory in war - that was what he was trying to tell her.

Of course, Yuki had known that all along.

* * *

"_I never wanted you to become a soldier," _she had told Inaho. _"I became a soldier so that you wouldn't have to. Don't you see, Nao-kun?"_

"_I know," _he said, standing beside the Kataphrakt with a gun in his hand._ "But I have to do this."_

"_But why?" _she asked helplessly.

For a moment, her little brother did not answer. His eyebrows merely furrowed slightly, betraying a determined frown. Yuki, who was attuned to the subtlest of her brother's expressions, understood what his frown meant better than anyone else ever could.

"_Because it is the most correct and logical decision,_" he said, _"in order to save everyone."_

* * *

With an earth-shattering splash, Yuki's Kataphrakt fell into the ocean.

The inside of a Kataphrakt might be air tight, but there was no way to prevent the machine from sinking. Yuki fell down, down, down. There was nowhere else to go. Through the window, she saw nothing but watery darkness, pulling her further and further into its depths.

Yuki closed her eyes and let her machine fall.

_Down, down, down, _until…

She stopped.

The feet of her Kataphrakt touched solid steel. For a moment, Yuki had no idea what had just happened. But as whole minutes passed and the Kataphrakt fell no further, Yuki came to a realisation.

She had fallen on top of the submarine.

By then, Yuki was panting and sweating hard. The submarine captain's voice spoke into her intercom, telling her to stay put. But Yuki did not feel safe. As long as she stayed on the submarine, she found herself thinking, _"What if they ram a torpedo into us?"_

She did not know how long she waited. The grey Martian Kataphrakt had not chased her underwater, but still she imagined that it was coming after her, anticipating her every move with hawk-like eyes.

Even an hour after coming out of the danger zone, her hands shook slightly.

Had Inaho's hands ever shook like this as he took hold of his Kataphrakt's controls?

Pointless questions like that swirled in Yuki's mind. She lay back in her seat and closed her eyes for the rest of the journey back.

Back at the base, the officers were grim-faced. The fact that the Martians had now taken to the seas en route to Japan… the presence of multiple Kataphrakts coordinating their attacks… Just what were the Martians planning? It was a major topic of discussion during the debriefing session. Yuki could offer no tentative suggestions; her guess was as good as anybody's.

Somehow, she got the feeling that the Martian warship they had encountered today was the harbinger of change. A black warship at Uraga Harbor. Once it came to shore, Japan would never be the same ever again.

Later, as the soldiers were clearing out of the briefing room, Yuki stayed behind and listened to what the intelligence officers were saying.

"We may not find another opportunity like this again," John Birchingham was saying. "If the General Headquarters won't send the order in time, we'll fabricate it."

"Do you know what you're saying? That's a war crime!" Paul Rodney cried.

"And so what? You think the Martians haven't been committing war crimes? There's no such thing as a just war."

Yuki looked down at her knees, overwhelmed with the sense that things were spiralling fast out of her control.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Miss Kaizuka, you really did well out there." It was Professor Bridges, smiling at her encouragingly.

"It's nothing," Yuki insisted. "You haven't seen the best of what the Earth forces can do." She blinked in puzzlement. "Why are you here?"

Ordinarily, a civilian was not permitted to join military briefings. It seemed the senior officers had allowed an exception this one time since nobody was looking at the professor strangely.

"Mr. Birchingham has been asking me about what sort of weapon could take down the Martians when they least expect it," the scientist explained matter-of-factly.

Professor Bridges was a gentle-faced woman, but at times like these, Yuki remembered that she held a doctorate in military sciences. She had dedicated her life to studying weapons of war.

"Miss Kaizuka, do you know why wars are fought?"

Yuki looked up. The expression on the professor's face was unexpectedly severe. "I… because… well…" Yuki was tongue-tied.

"I dedicated my life to studying nuclear weapons," Professor Bridges said. "I did so in the hope that understanding them better would make it easier to disarm them. And now I do the same thing for Aldnoah. The existence of technological gaps does nothing but feed insecurity among the have-nots."

_That sounds something Nao-kun would say,_ Yuki thought, looking down again.

"If Earth fires nukes in response to the threat of Aldnoah, it will cause more damage to Earth than it will to the enemy," Professor Bridges went on. "But the longer we stay in indecision, the more the choice will be forced upon us. The only way to stop it from coming to that is learning the secrets of Aldnoah."

"But that's impossible," Yuki said sadly, remembering their earlier conversation. Nobody seemed to know anything about Aldnoah, not even the Martians themselves.

Then suddenly, she remembered something. A name.

"The pilot of that grey Kataphrakt… his name was Slaine Troyard."

Professor Bridges looked up sharply upon hearing that name. She blinked, and then broke out into a smile. "I always wondered what happened to Dr. Troyard's son. Perhaps this could be the breakthrough we're looking for."

"But how? He belongs to the enemy side!"

"That's true…" Professor Bridges said, her face falling. "If only there was a way to get a message through to him. Or better yet - capture him."

The two women looked down at their hands. Yuki clenched her left fist.

Oh yes, the more she thought about it, the more a ridiculous plan came to mind. It would take resources and Dutch courage to even attempt, but Inaho would probably have tried with the intention of pulling it off. But Yuki was different. All she could see was her brother's blood-splattered corpse in her mind's eye.

A sudden fatigue fell over her. The idea was stupid and illogical, after all. It was not even worth bringing up. It wouldn't work. It wouldn't save anyone…

So Yuki sighed and said nothing for the moment. As time hurtled past her, rushing towards a point of no return, she decided to stay still.

* * *

For one more day.

* * *

**Author's note: **Soooo… nuclear weapons. I think that the anime very deliberately avoided addressing this topic, even though the discovery of Vers took place well after nuclear weapons were first developed. There's no reason why the UFE would not have access to nuclear weapons.

I know that the real reason that there are no nukes in the _Aldnoah _universe is because it would take away focus from the mecha battles, but here is an in-universe explanation I came up with which should be considered canon for this story:

One of the side effects of the Heaven's Fall incident is that it caused nuclear reactors around the world to go out of control. Realising that it was too dangerous to keep control of nuclear weapons in case of another Heaven's Fall, Earth's leaders agreed to disarm nuclear weapons and focus military spending on building Kataphrakts. However, a small number of nukes still remain in the hands of the more powerful countries for safeguarding purposes.


	8. II) Inaho and Slaine

**07\. Inaho and Slaine**

By the next day, a new layer of unease had fallen over the base. Word had quickly spread about the naval encounter with the Martians. When Yuki turned up at the mess hall in the morning, the soldiers were already talking about leaving the base.

One soldier at her table, a tall African American man, announced that he had already packed his bags. "You'll see. The evacuation order will come any day."

Yet there was plenty of disagreement among the lower ranks, because nobody quite knew what the higher ups were thinking. With the UFE's position at Okinawa becoming increasingly shaky, who knew how the authorities would choose to respond? At any rate, people certainly had their opinions.

"The UFE should strengthen this base and defend it to the bitter end," a Japanese soldier declared forthrightly, if a little melodramatically. "Okinawa is Japan's last bastion."

"The UFE has just been wasting time and resources maintaining this base," retorted a scar-faced Chinese soldier. It was clear from the way they glared at each other across the table that the Chinese man and the Japanese man did not get along. Yuki kept her head down and chewed on her rations as the Chinese soldier continued. "You're talking like a kamikaze pilot. It's disgusting."

"So you're fine with giving up on millions of Japanese lives? You Chinese disgust me with your self-centered ways."

"Right back at you, Jap. All you think about is your own country, not realising there's a bigger war going on around us."

Yuki groaned inwardly. Was this really the time for in-fighting?

At the same time, as a Japanese citizen herself, of course she had to sympathise with the Japanese soldiers and workers. She might no longer have a family, but Japan was her home. She knew nowhere else. And the Martians were bent on destroying it.

As these thoughts flashed through Yuki's brain, she heard the scraping of chairs and the yelling of curses. The Japanese man and the Chinese man had started punching each other. One of the nearby sergeants rushed in to intervene. Even so, it took several minutes for the tumult to die down.

Overcome with inexplicable nausea, Yuki did not finish her meal.

* * *

Some hours after the morning's incident, a Japanese soldier came knocking on Yuki's door. The Japanese residents of the base were starting a coalition, he explained.

Of those who operated from the Okinawa base, about seventy per cent were Americans, many of whom had been stationed there for years before the war broke out. Another twenty per cent or so were Japanese nationals. The other ten per cent were from other countries. This meant that the Japanese were in the minority, even though Okinawa was formally part of the Japanese state. When the war broke out, many Japanese soldiers were redeployed at the Okinawa base as a result of losing their bases in the mainland. Consequentially, the majority of Japanese at Okinawa retained strong connections to the mainland. Yuki was one among many.

Quite understandably, the Japanese tended to stick to themselves, even as they took orders from the central authority at the base. It was a natural step for the Japanese to form a united group when they felt that their interests were being threatened.

Yuki came to the meeting, which took place in one of the underground training halls. The sides of the hall were lined up with booths for shooting practice. None of them were currently being used, even though the majority of the people in the room were armed with guns. Some of the soldiers sat cross-legged and polished their guns while the de facto leader of the group, a young and grim-faced Tokyoite named Mishima Takeo, addressed the hundred-strong gathering.

"We Japanese must protect our interests, even if the whole world turns against us. Those Americans may strut around as if they own the place, but Okinawa has always belonged to us. Even if they leave, we will stay."

The crowd began to murmur among themselves. What was Ensign Mishima suggesting? Defying the evacuation orders if (when) they came?

"What good is patriotism when the Martians will kill us all?" a female soldier asked bitterly. Not even the Japanese could agree among themselves.

"What good is patriotism, you ask?" Mishima banged his fist against a nearby pillar to accentuate his words. "We might belong to the United Forces of Earth, but it's clear enough to me that the word 'united' is merely a codename for Russia and the West. The UFE protects Western interests over Japan. Can't you see? They've sacrificed Japan and are leaving it to the Martian dogs. Are you going to sit on your laurels and permit the extermination of the Japanese race?"

His words stirred more murmurs. Some of the previously hesitant Japanese started to take on a look of grim determination.

"He's right. Japan is dying at this rate."

"The UFE doesn't give a shit about Japan."

"I heard rumours they're going to relocate us to Beijing."

"Nobody wants that!"

Mishima began to pass out headbands with the symbol of a red rising sun printed on them. Yuki took one and stared at it. It vaguely rang a bell. Had she spent more time thinking about it, she might have remembered the Rising Sun flag from the history textbooks, but school was a lifetime ago.

Around her, people were donning the headbands, though others, like Yuki, were still uncertain.

"For the sake of Nippon, we will stay and fight for a better future!" Mishima declared, using the old-fashioned word for Japan.

"Nippon Banzai!" someone in the crowd roared.

More and more people were putting on the headbands.

"I heard the Americans want to nuke Japan."

"I bet they're just using the Martians as an excuse."

"No one wants another Hiroshima!"

Yuki was starting to get uncomfortable. Were these people forgetting who the real enemy was here? Then again, she remembered the words of John Birchingham, the U.S. senior intelligence officer: _"If the General Headquarters won't send the order in time, we'll fabricate it."_

Yuki shivered. The headband slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground, where it was soon crushed underfoot by the roaring crowd.

* * *

The situation only became messier over the next couple of days.

The lack of clear strategic direction from the General Headquarters very quickly took its toll on those stationed at the Okinawa base. Under normal circumstances, the delay would have been regarded as entirely understandable. The United Forces of Earth was a world-sized army, and communications had been slow since the very beginning of the war because of the satellite jamming.

But now, faced with rumours of impending evacuation and even nuclear war, the Japanese nationals very quickly became radicalised. More and more fights broke out. Some of the more violent troublemakers were already quietly being relocated to other bases. This only served to entrench the Japanese radicals in their position, who interpreted the decisions of the military authorities as an effort to silence them.

Mishima spoke of wild conspiracy plots: The Martians and the Americans were actually in cahoots, the Okinawa base would probably not be evacuated because Washington wanted to nuke Okinawa as well, and so on.

Once, Mishima even said, "Princess Asseylum was not killed by terrorists. The Martians killed her so that they could initiate their plan of genocide." Yuki opened her mouth to contradict him, but then closed it. What was the difference between lies and truth?

The plot thickened when an American spy aircraft returned to the base to report the situation at the mainland. The pilot confirmed that a significant number of Martians had indeed gathered at the city port of Yokohama.

The evacuation order was starting to seem more and more likely. The authorities ordered everyone on the base to act on standby. Yuki returned to her room and, for the first time, began to pack her bags.

The first thing she packed was her brother's photos, followed by his tablet. Next, she picked up the mysterious pendant, inspected it for a while, and then put it in the bag.

Then, she turned to the box of paper cranes.

Their bent wings held the promise of hope, but they took up too much space. She would not be able to pack them in her bag without sacrificing something pragmatic and useful. Yet still, Yuki hesitated.

_Oh, Nao-kun… What would you have done?_

As she held the box over the wastepaper bin, caught in indecision, someone knocked on her door. Yuki put the box down on the table next to her handgun and opened the door.

It was Professor Julie Bridges. Yuki had not seen her around for the last couple of days, but there was a harried look about her now that matched the overall chaos of the Okinawa base these days.

"The evacuation order has come," she said breathlessly.

Finally, huh.

"Really? How do you know?" Yuki asked cautiously.

"The order arrived an hour ago. The commander told me to go first because I'm a civilian. He'll be announcing a more general order later, I imagine. Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about."

Professor Bridges took a deep breath. Her eyes flickered open, revealing a splinter of sadness and pain and then - resignment.

"The hardliners got their way. Washington will launch a nuclear missile at Yokohama two days from now at 1100 hours. That's the real reason behind the evacuation."

"I… see…" Yuki said numbly.

It was a bewildering development.

In actual fact, Yuki had this seen this coming, but had done nothing about it. And now the prospect was staring her in the face.

For a moment, Yuki could not bring herself to think.

Finally, she said, "There's still time… isn't there?"

"But what can you or I do?" Professor Bridges looked up at the ceiling. "I wonder if the Martians themselves will stop it. The Aldnoah is powerful, isn't it?"

"Powerful enough to stop a missile?"

"Why not? The anti-gravity power of the Deucalion is certainly capable of it."

Yuki stared at the scientist. "Are you suggesting we _give _them our Aldnoah drive?"

"Of course not. But if only we could use it ourselves..."

Professor Bridges was saying the same thing as she did before. Aldnoah this, Aldnoah that. It was all a pipe dream. "Why are you telling me this?" Yuki demanded, irritated for no reason she could discern. "Do you really think I know something you don't?"

"No," Professor Bridges said frankly. Yuki blinked. "But I think you have the power to do things."

"Like what?" Yuki's question came out sharper than she intended.

But before Yuki could backtrack, the professor responded. "The crew of the Deucalion defeated all of its enemies. Surely you don't think that was a coincidence, that your actions have no effect on anyone else? If you don't believe yourself capable, then how can you help anyone?"

"I… I…"

Inaho's dead body flashed through Yuki's mind. She saw the blood on his body and the devastated streets of Shinawara. She saw her brother's calm smile and the enemy Kataphrakts they had managed to defeat together…

She clenched her fist. "Stop it. Stop being so logical."

"Miss Kaizuka…?"

Yuki shook her head. "Nothing… I'm just being stupid… I just…"

As she struggled for words, a man appeared at the door, clutching a telegram. "Excuse me. There's a message from the Russian Headquarters for you, Warrant Officer Kaizuka."

Baffled, Yuki took the telegram. The man saluted and walked away, leaving Yuki and Professor Bridges in the room alone.

"I'm sorry, should I leave you alone?" the professor asked, inclining her head towards the door.

"No, it's all right," Yuki said as she opened the telegram. "I don't know who this is fro-"

She stopped mid-sentence.

Her eyes took in the words printed on the page.

"Miss Kaizuka…?" In the corner of Yuki's vision, she could see Professor Bridges looking away awkwardly. "I probably should go."

"Slaine Troyard…" Yuki uttered the name slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully.

"Hm?"

Yuki walked over to the table and picked up her handgun. It was fully loaded. "You're right," she said to Professor Bridges. "There is something I can do."

A nuclear missile. The Aldnoah drive. Her dead brother.

_Slaine Troyard._

The hands of fate seemed to be pushing her in one direction. All the grief and misdirected anger, which had brought her to a standstill for so long, brought a new spring to her step. Now, at last, Yuki could move.

* * *

As the evacuation orders were sounded across the base, Yuki sought out the one group of people she knew would stay behind - her fellow Japanese countrymen.

"I have a plan," she said.

When she told them what it was, even Mishima looked at her as if she was more than a little crazy. "B-but that's suicide!"

"Weren't you the one talking about how noble it would be to die for your country?" Yuki asked pointedly.

"You want to lure the Martians to us!"

"Isn't it better than waiting for them to kill us?"

"I… well…" Not wanting to look like a coward, Mishima shook his head. "I'll do it."

Yuki smiled thinly. Had she saw herself in the mirror, she would not have recognised her own smile.

* * *

There was a reason why the UFE had held onto the Okinawa base for so long - it was the perfect location to spy on the Martians.

Along with the scientists studying the Aldnoah drive, a team of cryptographers was hard at work attempting to crack the Martians' military code. Being stationed at Okinawa when the enemy had taken mainland Japan was like living on a knife's edge, but the small yet dedicated team was perfectly positioned to uncover vital information. The soldiers were there to protect them as necessity dictated.

The efforts had been mostly successful so far. Martian codes were childishly simple to decrypt, the cryptographers had said. It seemed that most of Vers's technological innovation had been poured into their killing machines, leaving gaps in their less overtly militaristic technology. The only problem was that each Landing Castle used a different code, which made them difficult to keep track of. As for the code the Martian warship from the other day had used, it was a recognisable one that matched the letters and symbols used at the Yokohama stronghold.

Yuki stood against the wall outside the lab with a gun pressed beside her ear. Once she confirmed that all the civilian cryptographers had left the vicinity, she looked at Mishima and nodded. The two of them rushed into the empty lab. Soon, they were followed by about ten more Japanese soldiers, who quickly locked the doors behind them.

"Log into the code database!" Yuki commanded. "Send out a message to Yokohama using the Martian code! Tell them that the Okinawa base is weak right now!"

A tense half-hour passed as the soldiers rushed to obey Yuki's orders. Somehow, without anyone saying so, she had managed to become a leader. She did not pause to think about it. The soldiers inputted the codes and informed her that the signal had been sent.

And just like that, the tide of the war changed.

Anyone watching them could only have come to the conclusion that Yuki and the others were agents for the Martians, betraying their own kind.

Indeed, at that very moment, the Americans began banging against the lab doors. "What is this madness?!" Yuki could hear John Birchingham's voice. "Warrant Officer Kaizuka, you are committing military treason!"

Some of the Japanese soldiers looked at Yuki uneasily. Yuki shook her head firmly.

"You know as well as I do that this is no time for a court martial," Yuki responded to the senior intelligence officer through the door. "I suggest you finish the evacuation. We Japanese will fight the Martians."

There was no possibility of Yuki's scheme harming civilians. All the citizens of Okinawa had been evacuated from the island months earlier. The last civilians had already left on the last plane some time ago. Most of the soldiers were gone as well; only the stragglers were left now.

"Are you insane?!" Birchingham yelled incredulously. But of course he could not stay to lecture them, because if he did, he would be caught in the inevitable crossfire. Instead, he said, "I will be reporting this to the General Headquarters."

"Go right ahead."

Yuki did not think she would live to see the consequences.

She heard footsteps running away from the door, followed by a brief, blissful silence. She turned back to the Japanese soldiers in the room and nodded.

"Nippon Banzai!" Mishima raised his fist and cheered.

Yuki closed her eyes and listened silently as the others cheered.

Then, when the noise had died down, she opened her eyes and said, "Now we vacate the base."

"Wh-what?!"

"Do you honestly think we could face the Martians by ourselves?" Yuki asked. Even the most diehard kamikaze fighter would not kid himself into believing that beyond his death lay victory.

There were only several hundred people left at the base by this time. Hardly enough manpower to recreate the carnage of the Battle of Okinawa.

Not that Yuki had ever intended anything along those lines in the first place.

She looked at the soldiers and asked, "Haven't you ever heard of misdirection?"

* * *

As Yuki was heading for the hangar, where a handful of fighter planes still remained, someone tugged on her sleeve. Yuki turned around and blinked in surprise. It was Professor Julie Bridges.

"Why are you still here?" Yuki demanded.

"You'll need this, won't you?" the professor asked, holding up a dark blue orb. It was the Aldnoah drive.

"Thank you," Yuki said evenly, taking the orb. "Are you leaving now?"

"No, I'll come with you."

"It'll be dangerous."

"I don't care," said the professor firmly. "I've dedicated my life to studying the secrets of Aldnoah."

Yuki nodded, not arguing any further. "Stay close to me then. And take this." She reached to her belt and tossed the scientist a Glock 17, who caught it in surprise. "You've studied weapons, haven't you? You should be able to use this to defend yourself."

The scientist held the gun awkwardly in her hands and opened her mouth wordlessly. Yuki did not wait for a response.

"Come on." They climbed into a nearby fighter plane. After she put down the Aldnoah drive next to her seat, Yuki started up the engine and spoke into the intercom. "Set a course for Tanegashima."

* * *

Tanegashima was one of the Oosumi islands, located between Okinawa and Kyushu. If the enemy was going to attack Okinawa, they would have to pass over Tanegashima first. It was the perfect place to intercept them. And because Yuki had fought here before, she knew the terrain well enough to set up the appropriate trap.

Darkness had fallen by the time they arrived. Yuki wasted no time ordering the soldiers into position and prepping them for the battle to come.

"Our only target is Slaine Troyard," she explained. "He pilots a grey Kataphrakt. If he doesn't appear, we'll vacate this area. Do not attack unless I give the command. I repeat: do not give away our position."

Everyone was using mobile machinery, perfect for hit and run tactics: nimble air fighters and lightly-armoured Kataphrakts.

"How did you come up with a plan like this so quickly?" Professor Bridges asked incredulously. In the dead of the night, everything moved quickly, far too quickly for the professor to see with her own eyes.

Yuki looked up at the broken moon in the night sky before she answered her.

"I thought of it days ago. But I was too afraid to act."

"So why could you do it now?"

Why indeed?

Yuki saw her brother's calm face in her mind's eye. She would never see his rare smiles ever again. Although she was his older sister, he had protected her from their enemies. He had cooked their meals. He had sheltered her as much as she had sheltered him.

Inaho had always acted with logic and precision in order to reach his desired outcome. Now he was dead and she knew who had killed him.

There was nothing rational about war. Nothing rational about what Yuki wanted to achieve. She was alive and her brother was not.

Nothing was rational about that.

"Because I'm not my brother," she said.

Something in Yuki voice must have betrayed her emotion, because even though Professor Bridges could not see Yuki's face properly, she sighed softly in the darkness.

"Miss Kaizuka…"

Yuki did not reply. As she gazed at the sky, she saw a glimmer of light in the distance. She brought a pair of binoculars to her eyes. "It's them!" she hissed.

Professor Bridges brought a hand to her mouth in alarm. "That was fast!"

"Get into cover," Yuki told her grimly. The professor rushed to obey.

Now, only Yuki remained on the dock. She kept her eyes fixed on her binoculars, watching the Kataphrakts and sky carriers soar through the night sky.

Waiting for the grey Kataphrakt she saw that day.

"This time, I'll kill you for certain," Yuki muttered darkly.

Her hands tightened around the binoculars.

"…Slaine Troyard."


	9. II) Rising Sun

**08\. Rising Sun**

Ensign Mishima was waiting in a nearby cove - the one where the Martian Kataphrakt was still stowed away - when Yuki turned up, grasping a portable radio set in her right hand.

"Is it time?" he asked, his voice rasp from all the waiting.

"Not yet," said Yuki. She got on her hands and knees and started twiddling with the radio. It was letting out an awful lot of static. "Come on…" she muttered. The radio still wasn't responsive, so she got fed up and gave it a firm whack.

It turned out that was the contraption needed in order to kick itself into gear. The static remained, but one could make out distinct human voices now.

Martian voices, as it turned out.

"What are you planning to do?" Mishima asked curiously.

"I'm sending out a signal," Yuki explained. "I'm telling them we've excavated the Kataphrakt here and they ought to take it on board their ship."

"Seriously?!" Mishima exclaimed, staring at the Martian Kataphrakt in question. It was in very poor condition after fifteen years of neglect, more piecemeal than whole. There was no way anyone could render it usable again, but Yuki banked on the Martians not knowing this.

She nodded firmly in response to Mishima's incredulous exclamation. "We can make use of this," she declared. She gestured at the bridge they were standing on. "They can only enter in small numbers here. We ambush them, take their clothing and sneak on board the ship."

That way, they could find Slaine Troyard. She had seen the grey Kataphrakt flying near the warship. If she snuck on board the ship, then surely she would be able to contact him.

"You're crazy," said Mishima, not for the first time in the last couple of hours or so.

Yuki could see that everyone was nervous. Most of the battles so far had involved the UFE responding to the Martian attacks. It was the first time they had ever attempted a surprise attack of their own. The possibility that everything could backfire horribly was strong on everyone's minds.

After all, there were so many ways Yuki's plan could go wrong. She didn't even have to bother listing them all. She was no tactical genius, but even she could see the holes.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the radio crackled again. "Looks like they're docking," she said. If they had wanted to escape without being noticed, it was too late now. Their only hope was that the enemy would fall into their trap.

In that case, Yuki was ready for them. She clenched her fists tightly.

"At close quarters, we can win," she declared, as much for her own benefit as for the others.

* * *

They didn't have to wait long.

Within an hour, there was movement on the bridge. About thirty Japanese were soldiers positioned along the bridge, their guns pointed towards the door. The others were outside in the forest, ready to assist with a quick escape if the situation came to that. There was no more time to come up with any other idea.

At some point, Mishima came over to her and patted her on the shoulder. "We can do this," he said, and smiled.

Somewhere along the lines, he seemed to have developed a curious sort of respect for her, even if her scheme was crazy. Or maybe it was _because _her scheme was crazy. They were soldiers of the same generation - perhaps that explained it. Out on the battlefield, in the lull before the bullets flew, a soldier loved his fellow comrade more than his lover.

Yuki smiled back at him. She thought he was crazy too.

"Any minute now," she whispered.

"Yeah," he said, taking his hand away from her shoulder and cocking his gun. "Ready when you are."

_We can do this. We can really do this._

It was then that Yuki heard voices in her earpiece. They belonged to the soldiers she had positioned outside. "They found us! They - _aaaaaaargh_!" Then the voices cut out abruptly.

There was not much time to think of anything but _oh shit. _"They're coming!" Yuki yelled.

At that very same moment, the door opened and half a dozen Martian soldiers rushed in, armed with guns.

"Now!" Yuki roared. A volley of bullets took the Martians down immediately.

Then the chaos began.

Everyone yelled around her. Someone - a Martian, no doubt - slammed the door shut, no doubt in an effort to regroup. Yuki took out a hand grenade from her belt, ripped the pin off with her teeth and tossed it at the door, blowing it open permanently.

Then she ducked as the Martians retaliated with their own fire. In her peripheral vision, she saw one of her own men splutter and fall backwards off the railing. Only a long fall and a painful death awaited him at the bottom.

"Fall back!" Yuki wanted to order, but "Keep going!" was what she said. If they did not press the attack, the Martians would quickly regroup and overpower them.

They had to fight their way onto the ship. They could not use their Kataphrakts inside. It was the only way they could level the score.

Mishima ran beside her, clutching an assault rifle. He and Yuki exchanged glances, and they both nodded. They barrelled their way through the opening Yuki had created.

The next few minutes passed like a blur. Once the UFE soldiers had finished off the enemies at the door, they ran down the bridge towards where the ship was docked. As it turned out, it had stopped within a few hundred yards of where Yuki had been positioned.

As she ran, she yelled an order into her earpiece, directed at whichever soldiers were left in the forest. "Send out a signal flare to distract them! Then run for the southwest cove and take to the skies!"

An established war tactic was to make one's own side look stronger and more numerous than it really was. Military school was good for something.

At that moment, a bullet flew past Yuki's cheek. Had it fallen a few more inches to the left, she would almost certainly have died on the spot. Ensign Mishima lifted his gun and shot dead the man who had very almost killed her. "Don't let your guard down!" Yuki thought she heard him roar.

She did not spare the breath to thank him. By then, everything was lost in a wild frenzy.

* * *

Somehow, in the midst of all the tumult and the gunfire and the yelling, Yuki and her forces fought their way into the back of the ship. They gunned down the sentry men and climbed on board. Afterwards, Yuki would not have been able to explain how she managed it. All she knew was that she had managed it, while the men and women around her fell in the onslaught. She did not spare at a glance at the Japanese soldiers who had fallen.

They were inside the deck. It was extremely claustrophobic in there. Whenever someone appeared in the hallway, Yuki shot him on instinct. The alarm bells were ringing incessantly. The doors were closed behind her.

_We're probably not going to get out of this alive_. The thought occurred to her absently as she kept pulling the trigger of her gun over and over again, not caring where the bullets landed.

Presently, she stopped.

"I've run out of bullets," she said numbly.

"Use their guns!" Mishima shouted, kicking a Martian handgun away from one of their dead enemies. When Yuki looked up, she noticed that she was using one of their guns as well.

It was awfully small and flimsy, almost like a toy, but it would have to do. As Yuki ran along the hallway, she noticed a swarm of Martian soldiers appearing in the distance. In order to avoid them, she dived into the room next to her. Mishima followed suit. The soldiers behind Yuki weren't so lucky. She heard them scream as they bullets sank into their bodies.

And yet they forged on. "For Japan!" they screamed.

As soon as door shut behind Yuki, she heard the sound of a roaring explosion, followed immediately by more screaming. It wasn't just the Japanese; the Martians were screaming too. The Japanese soldiers had set themselves on fire with their grenades.

Weakly, Yuki fell to her knees, for the noise was not the kind one could simply shut off and ignore. Oh no. It was a terrible cacophony played with perfect intervals, an earth-shattering tune sung by living corpses. She was uninjured, but the music made her weak. She could only scramble blindly in the darkness, unable to tell the difference between the beginning and end of a stanza.

As she fumbled her way around the unlit room, Yuki almost found herself tripping over a large bed with soft, feathery sheets. _The perfect resting place,_ Yuki thought dimly.

At that moment, she heard a muffled whimper.

_Someone's here!_

Climbing shakily to her feet, Yuki pointed her gun in the direction of the noise. There was a lump on the bed. Someone was cowering under the sheets.

Mishima promptly tore off the sheets with an almost savage kind of desperation. When he saw who was under it, he let out a gasp.

"That's-!"

At that moment, the door opened and the lights switched on.

A young man in a Martian knight uniform stood with a gun in his hand. As Mishima was reaching his hand out towards the bed, the knight fired his gun. Mishima drew his hand back, howling in pain as the blood dribbled down his arm.

"Stop," said the knight, now pointing his gun at Yuki, who had reflexively pointed her own gun at him in retaliation. "Unhand the girl."

Yuki recognised that voice. She had heard it in her Kataphrakt that day over the Philippine Sea.

"So you're Slaine Troyard," she said.

The young man named Slaine Troyard blinked in surprise for a brief moment, and then a deep frown set over his face.

"Unhand the girl," he repeated himself.

"So that you can shoot me? The way you shot my brother?"

"Huh?"

Instead of responding, Yuki gripped her gun with both hands, steadying her aim. The two of them stood with their guns pointed straight at each other in silence.

During that brief standoff, Yuki took in the face of her brother's murderer, carving every inch of it into her memory.

He probably wasn't much older than her little brother had been. That was the terrible thing. They were boys of the earth. They could have taken flight, but instead they shot each other to the ground. If this boy before her was a murderer, then so was her baby-faced little brother, who cooked eggs for her in the morning and did so well at school.

Yuki upon the face of the boy, so young and yet so old, and all of a sudden felt ageless. This boy had lived while Inaho had died. Where was the justice in that?

"I see," said Slaine Troyard suddenly. "So Miss Eddelrittuo did as I asked her to."

Although Yuki recognised Eddelrittuo's name, she had no idea what Slaine was talking about.

Then Slaine said, "I'm sorry, but I cannot let you kill me here."

Before Yuki could blink, he reached out and grabbed her arm in a twist hold. With a pained gasp, she let go of the gun.

"I don't want to kill you," Slaine said quietly. "I don't want to kill anymore."

Yuki struggled in his hold. This boy might be young and thin, but he was strong for his size and he knew the proper technique.

"But even so," he went on. "I cannot let you live."

She heard the sadness in his voice. Yuki understood that he had let down his guard at that moment. She turned her wrist and slipped out of his hold, then swept her feet, causing their legs to tangle.

He gasped in shock. As she fell on top of him, her hand immediately went for his wrist, knocking the gun out of his hand. In an instant, the tables had turned.

The next moment, they heard the sound of someone cocking a gun.

"Give it up, Martian," said Mishima. With his able hand, he was pointing a gun at the defenceless girl on the bed.

"Slaine!" the girl cried out, her eyes welling with tears. But she made no move, perhaps because she was paralysed with fear.

Slaine scowled. He was clearly regretting his mercy now.

"He's not a Martian," Yuki pointed out, not that it really mattered. "He's a Terran."

"Either way," said Mishima, "he's not Japanese."

Yuki remembered then that although she and Mishima shared a common enemy, they didn't really want the same thing at all, but she kept quiet, because he was on her side and that was all that mattered when it came to exacting justice.

Yuki turned back to Slaine.

"You're Dr. Troyard's son," she said. She picked up her fallen gun and pointed it at his face. "I want you to tell us everything you know about the Aldnoah activation factor."

"I don't know… anything…"

"Liar!"

She slapped her brother's murderer across the face.

"Tell us what you know. You can use a Martian Kataphrakt even though you're a Terran. So activate the Aldnoah drive for us."

"I told you… I don't know… I'm just a soldier…"

Yuki looked into his eyes and saw that he was telling the truth. Professor Bridges had gone to many lengths to describe how clever Dr. Troyard was, but his son knew nothing. He was just another killer, another dead end in this ghoulish labyrinth of war. Perhaps if they weren't inside the enemy stronghold she could have interrogated him further, but she knew that if she and Mishima were to have any chance of surviving, they would have to clear off now.

Of course, they would all die when the nuclear warhead hit. All of them.

Not that it really mattered to Yuki anymore.

"Then it's time for you to die," she said coldly. "This is for Nao-kun."

Yuki's finger began to close around the trigger. Slaine closed his eyes.

"Stop!" cried the girl's voice suddenly. "Please… stop! I can activate the Aldnoah drive. Just please… don't kill Slaine!"

…_what?_

Slaine opened his eyes in horror. "Princess Lemrina, no!"

_A princess?! _

Yuki swung her head towards the girl. Her hair was pale and her eyes were blue. She looked nothing like Princess Asseylum at first glance. But perhaps… when one looked closely…

_Thud. _The girl fell off the bed, reaching her hand out crawled across the floor agonisingly slowly. Even so, each movement inched her close and closer to Yuki and Slaine. Tears streamed down her face, but she made no effort to wipe them away.

Yuki could only stare. It had never occurred to her that anyone would want to save the life of her brother's murderer.

"I don't care what you do to me. I'm nothing but a tool," said the pale, fragile girl as she lifted her head. There was a sad sort of dignity in her eyes. "I am Princess Lemrina Vers Envers, the rightful heir of Aldnoah."

* * *

They made Slaine carry the crippled princess because it slowed him down and prevented him from using his hands. Whenever they encountered soldiers in the hallway, Slaine would tell them to stand down. He had no choice, after all. Otherwise, the princess would be hurt in the crossfire.

In any case, they didn't attract much suspicion. Following their original plan, Yuki and Mishima dressed up as Martian soldiers. By the time they left the princess's bedroom, the rest of the Japanese troops had been decimated, so there was no more fighting. Their corpses littered the hallways; there was no avoiding them. While Yuki and Mishima kept their eyes open out of necessity, the princess scrunched her eyes shut.

In order to escape, they entered Slaine's grey Kataphrakt. Even though the front seat was only intended for one person, Yuki squashed herself next to him. "Fly to Yakushima Island," she instructed him. That was where Professor Bridges was waiting with the Aldnoah drive. Yuki had sent her there before the fighting had started.

They did not speak as Slaine started the Kataphrakt. Although Yuki was a beautiful older woman and Slaine an adolescent boy, he showed no sign of embarrassment or pleasure at the fact that his thigh was touching against Yuki's. In fact, he looked extremely irritated. This was understandable, considering that he and the princess were now hostages of the UFE - or whatever faction of the UFE that Yuki and Mishima were supposed to represent.

"Are you intending to exploit the princess to your own ends?" Slaine demanded.

Yuki did not respond immediately. Instead, she looked around the interior of the machine. One could see everything perfectly from inside a Martian Kataphrakt. No need to cast your eyes on multiple monitors. Little wonder those Martian Kataphrakts moved with such evident grace and smoothness. They were so much more user-friendly than the Terran Kataphrakts, so much faster and stronger too.

Once, Yuki had believed that the Martians would stop fighting, that they would lay down their monstrous arms for the sake of their princess. Asseylum had touched the lives of everyone she met. For her sake, even a Terran like Yuki figured that she could put her life on the line.

Inaho had loved her too. Perhaps he had even loved her in a special way, a way that he would never love his sister who knew him best. He never spoke of it, not even to Yuki, but he had spent almost all of his free time with that princess, listening to her speak and laugh. Even his logical brain had appreciated the beauty of that girl's vision. No, he had never exploited her. Others might be tempted to think so, but to Yuki, the mere idea was silly.

But Inaho was gone now. Asseylum too. They were gone, but the war kept going. There was nothing to believe in now, except the war. Yuki did not know this other princess, did not even know if she was telling the truth about herself, but even so, she was sick of the killing. She only wanted the power of Aldnoah.

"If she's exploited, do you have a problem with that?" Yuki asked him back.

There was no way to beat an enemy who cheated, not unless you cheated too.

"You're my enemy," said Slaine Troyard, with a firm sort of grimness, as if he had decided on something.

His lips tugged downwards jaggedly. It vaguely occurred to Yuki that this boy in man's clothing - this murderer - was good-looking, as far as younger men went. But his beauty seemed somehow ugly to her, like she was looking through a distorted mirror at a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The war had destroyed so much. It had made monsters of them all.

"We're enemies with a common goal," Yuki said.

That only caused his ugly frown to deepen. "What?"

So Yuki told him about the impending missile strike, about why she needed the Aldnoah drive to activate. She told him about the circumstances that had led to her entrusting her life to the young man who had murdered her younger brother. He could choose to fly his Kataphrakt into the sea and kill them all, if he so fancied.

As she spoke, she glanced at the surrounding ocean. The dark clouds had parted and the waters were sparkling brilliantly with the promise of a new day. In the east, the sun was rising, just as it would on any other day.

* * *

**Author's note: **This seems like a cool time to announce that I just finished translating the _Aldnoah Zero _prequel novel, which you can find pretty easily if you google "Aldnoah Extra the Translation". It's the first Wordpress website that comes up. The story is about Yuki and Inaho's backstory and their sibling love.

I think Yuki's actions in this story make more sense when you take the prequel novel into account, but of course, their bond was very easy to appreciate from watching the anime as well.


	10. II) The Activation Factor

**09\. The Activation Factor**

"So this is the Martian princess…" Professor Bridges muttered.

Princess Lemrina sat immobile in the chair, her eyebrows knitted into a frown.

"We won't hurt you," the professor said gently. "So don't be afraid."

"I know you won't hurt me," said Princess Lemrina, although the whiteness of her face suggested that she was very much afraid. "I'm a valuable hostage. It would defeat your own purposes to kill me here and now."

"We sacrificed countless of our own to get you," Ensign Mishima snarled as he nursed his bandaged hand. "You think your life is worth hundreds, little girl? Thousands? Millions?" He scowled at her.

Princess Lemrina flinched.

"You're scaring her, Mishima," Yuki said sternly.

But all the same, Mishima was right. All the Japanese soldiers who had followed them from Okinawa were dead now. The Martians had killed them all. The only people Yuki and Mishima found in the cove at Yakushima Island were Professor Bridges and a young female pilot named Miyazawa Tsubaki. Their victory had come at an inconceivable cost, but as far as war went, it was the same old story.

At the moment, Miyazawa was busy tightening the ropes around Slaine Troyard, leaving Yuki, Mishima and Professor Bridges to talk with the Martian princess. Everything had turned out so terribly wrong, but there was hardly any time to think about those who were already dead.

It had come as a surprise to Yuki that Princess Asseylum had a sister. She had never mentioned siblings at all. This peculiarity began to make sense as Princess Lemrina talked. The Martians had kept the princess a secret even among themselves, which explained why cracking their military codes and pirating their broadcasts had not provided any indication of her existence. She was an illegitimate child, though she still possessed the Aldnoah activation factor, she hastened to add.

Like Asseylum, Princess Lemrina held an air of dignity about her, even when her life was in mortal peril. She answered questions clearly, needing little prompting to explain herself. But Yuki could also see that she was shaking and that she gripped the sides of her chair so tightly that her knuckles were white. And, for all the princess's bravery, her eyes held no possibility of hope or angry defiance, as if she had resigned herself to her fate. _I'm nothing but a tool,_ she had said.

Even so, capturing the princess left a bad taste in Yuki's mouth. Professor Bridges was humane throughout the whole grisly affair, but it didn't change the fact that Princess Lemrina was an innocent girl who had nothing to do with Yuki's revenge. If only she had not possessed the power of Aldnoah…

"Would you like a glass of water?" Professor Bridges asked kindly. Princess Lemrina shook her head stiffly.

"Don't let this drag on too long," Mishima said darkly. "No doubt the enemy is tracking the grey Kataphrakt." He inclined his head outside the cove, where Slaine's Kataphrakt was lying dormant on the sands.

Yuki agreed with him. They could not afford to linger, especially when the nuclear missile was being launched at the Japanese mainland only a matter of hours from now.

"We might need the Aldnoah drive," Professor Bridges insisted. "At least dismantle it first."

"We don't have _time_," Yuki responded agitatedly. She glanced sideways at Slaine, who was watching them impassively, as if forcing to keep his face still. She was almost certain that his Kataphrakt was being tracked.

"Here's an idea," said Mishima suddenly. "We get the girl to pass on her Aldnoah privilege to us, then we hijack the Kataphrakt. So what does she do - wave her hands and say abracadabra?"

"Of course not," said Princess Lemrina scornfully, but said nothing more.

She seemed to have decided not to tell them about how to pass on the Aldnoah activation factor. That was a sensible idea from her point of view. If Yuki and the others could activate the Aldnoah themselves, there would be no further reason to keep the princess alive.

Unfortunately for Princess Lemrina, Professor Bridges had already studied the subject. A dark shadow came over the homely woman's face suddenly.

"Her blood passes on the activation factor. If her blood drops on our skin, we'll obtain the privilege."

It said something about desperate they all were that Yuki immediately thought of cutting a small wound into the princess, even if she did not act on that thought. Mishima, however, promptly drew out a knife from his belt.

"You heard her, little girl."

The princess stiffened, her eyes drawn to the jungle knife. Its blade was longer than her face.

"You bastards!" Slaine snarled, struggling vainly against the ropes. "You wouldn't dare!"

"There must be another way," Professor Bridges said quickly. "Other bodily fluids must work too. Does saliva do the trick?"

Princess Lemrina nodded frantically, her eyes still fixed on Mishima's glinting blade.

"Saliva, huh…" Mishima sheathed the knife. Princess Lemrina breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Works for me," Mishima went on grimly.

Then suddenly he was in front of the princess, crushing his lips against hers.

Yuki felt sick. The princess made a hoarse noise in her throat. Mishima was thrusting his tongue into her mouth as far as it would go. Frightened tears welled in the princess's wide eyes.

"Stop it, Mishima!" Yuki shouted, waving her arms frantically.

Mishima drew his head back and wiped his mouth against his hand. A deep scowl of disgust was etched across his features. He was not enjoying himself in the slightest.

"I bet she does it with all the Orbital Knights," he said with a shrug, as if that excused his actions. Before Yuki could reprimand him, he rushed outside towards Slaine's Kataphrakt, not looking once behind him.

The princess's eyes were dull and glassy. Yuki watched as a tear rolled down her blank face.

"Bastards," Slaine repeated himself, his voice shaking with venom.

To that, Yuki could not bring herself to reply.

She wondered about Mishima, about what sort of person he had been before the war started. She had never asked him, and she would never know the answer even if she did ask. That person may as well never have existed.

* * *

"You're all swine," Princess Lemrina said.

It was the first time she had spoken since Mishima had forcefully kissed her. When Yuki turned around and looked at her, Princess Lemrina was wearing a bitter scowl that Princess Asseylum would never have been able to muster.

"You Terrans really are as vulgar as they say. The Orbital Knights of Vers follow a code of chivalry. They would never resort to such a-" But then she stopped, as if suddenly remembering something. She turned pale and covered her face with her hands.

Yuki watched her sympathetically.

_I knew your sister, _she wanted to say, but Princess Lemrina would probably not believe her. Yuki wondered if the princess in front of her knew or suspected the truth behind Asseylum's death.

"How old are you?" Yuki asked her.

Princess Lemrina removed her hands from her face. "Fourteen," she responded tonelessly. "No, I turned fifteen today."

The same age as Inaho, then.

No, he would have turned sixteen by now.

"I see…" Yuki smiled at the girl, who continued to glare at her resentfully. "When I was fifteen, I cared a lot about my first kiss."

"Who said anything about a first kiss?"

"That was your first kiss, wasn't it?"

Princess Lemrina said nothing, but a faint blush rose to her cheeks and she turned away quickly.

At that moment, Mishima came back into the cove. He was cursing loudly. It was clear that he had not gotten the Aldnoah drive to work.

"I know what this so-called 'princess' is planning," he declared furiously. "She's lying through her teeth just to buy herself time for the enemy reinforcements to arrive."

Anticipating that things were about to become ugly once again, Yuki quickly stepped between him and the princess. "That could very well be true, Ensign Mishima, but she's still an innocent girl."

She glanced at the princess as she spoke. Princess Lemrina had scrunched her eyes shut, refusing to look at Mishima. She even clamped a hand over her mouth, perhaps to prevent any further penetration. Her rather ineffectual act of defiance would almost have seemed demure, in a way, if the princess had not been so obviously upset.

"Tch!" Mishima scowled, but Yuki seemed to have convinced him to stand down. "We're wasting time."

"We need the Aldnoah rights," Professor Bridges insisted grimly.

"We don't have the rights! The girl is lying!"

Slaine chuckled suddenly at Mishima's words. He did not sound very mirthful.

"What's so funny?" Yuki demanded.

"You will never achieve your ambition. You don't understand how Aldnoah activation works."

Yuki's mind ran furiously. "Are you telling me that only you can use that Kataphrakt?"

Slaine's lips curled up with scorn, but he did not respond.

Ugh. This was all so _frustrating. _Not for the first time, Yuki wanted to shoot him. That had been her original plan, after all.

Professor Bridges spoke up then. "I take that to mean that you were given the sole right to that Kataphrakt. So only you or someone of royal blood can activate it."

The professor was the only person in the cove who was still calm. Where the others shook with rage, the professor kept a straight face. Her mind was focused only on one thing.

The professor turned to Mishima and held up the Aldnoah drive that had been taken from the Deucalion. "Put your hand over this, Ensign Mishima."

Mishima did as he was told, and as his fingers trailed over the drive, the dark blue orb lit up with an eerie, ethereal glow.

Yuki blinked in surprise. She recognised that light. It was exactly the same as the light that had shone in the Deucalion's bridge when the flying warship had been in action.

"Well, that just confirms it," Professor Bridges said with a brisk smile. "The princess was not lying. You really do have Aldnoah privileges, Ensign."

And just like that, the tension in the cove defused. Mishima's taut shoulders eased with evident relief. He almost cracked a smile.

"But still," Professor Bridges went on, casting a meaningful glance at Slaine. "It seems that only young Slaine here can use the Vers Kataphrakt. Unless…"

"Unless we kill him," Yuki finished for her.

Once again, the tension shot through her spine. They were all dangling on a knife's edge. Yuki swung around, meeting Slaine's white hot glare with one of her own.

"Calm down. That's not what I meant," said the professor, holding out an arm in front of Yuki.

Then she walked over to where Slaine was tied and knelt on one knee in front of him.

"It's been a while, Slaine. You've grown into a fine young man. I'm sorry we had to meet again in such ugly circumstances."

The professor spoke to Slaine the same way she had spoken to Lemrina - calmly and gently, as if he, too, was a human being, as alive as she surely was.

"Who are you?" he asked warily.

"You don't remember? Ah, you were such a small child back then, so it's only natural. We met in France twelve years ago. Your father was a colleague of mine."

"I see."

Slaine did not look as if he cared. Why should he? It was all a lifetime ago.

"I knew your mother as well," Julie Bridges went on. "Such a pity she died in childbirth. She always did have problems with her health. You have her eyes, you know."

Slaine's green eyes blinked wide. His long and delicate eyelashes fluttered in surprise.

For a moment, even Yuki, who despised him and everything he stood for, could see very clearly the innocent child he had once been.

"I… see…" Slaine repeated himself, this time a little shakily despite his efforts to remain sullen.

The professor smiled at him, almost maternal in her gentleness. Something very much like wistfulness came over her eyes. "Tell me, Slaine… how is your father doing these days? Is he well? I remember he was always so caught up with his research that he forgot to eat. Do you suppose that I could-?"

"He's dead."

"Oh."

The professor's face fell.

At that moment, Yuki remembered that Professor Bridges had never married. She had always assumed it was because the professor cared more about her research than anything else. But perhaps that wasn't her only passion…

"Why don't you join our side?" Professor Bridges asked Slaine intently.

Yuki gasped and frowned, but the professor paid no heed to her outrage.

"There's no reason for you to side with Vers, is there?" she went on, gazing at Slaine Troyard with hope in her eyes.

For a brief moment, Slaine hesitated unmistakably. But then his gaze fell on the blank-faced Princess Lemrina and something in his eyes hardened.

He looked straight at Yuki.

"Your brother exploited Princess Asseylum. And now you're exploiting Princess Lemrina. I'll never forgive you."

"Nao-kun never exploited Princess Asseylum!"

"Liar," Slaine said calmly.

Yuki seethed. "Look, you…!"

Professor Bridges interrupted them. "Please, calm down, you two." She turned back to their prisoner. "Slaine, we're only doing this to stop the missile."

"You think a nuclear missile would stop the Orbital Knights?" asked Slaine cuttingly. "Of course they have means of shielding against it. Only the Terrans and the Martian foot soldiers will die because of that missile."

"All the more reason to stop it, then," Professor Bridges said grimly.

Slaine did not respond. He merely closed his eyes.

"_Well?" _Yuki said sharply.

Slowly, Slaine opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

"I understand," he said quietly. He looked at Professor Bridges, and then at Yuki. "I will help you on this matter… _however._" He stopped and took a deep breath, eyes flashing with venom once again. "I won't let you have the princess. I'll kill you if you lay another finger on her."

Perhaps it was an empty threat coming from a young man in ropes, but something about his tone took Yuki aback.

She wondered if he was in love with the princess… No, it wasn't that…

It took Yuki a moment to realise. He sounded like a man who had nothing left to lose. Yuki remembered, too, how the princess had sacrificed herself for him, had begged them all not to kill him, and all of a sudden Yuki felt sick with everything.

As she gazed at Slaine, a new wave of anger passed through her. But the tint of the anger itself had warped and bended into something both intimately familiar and wholly unrecognisable.

"I promise," Yuki said solemnly. "After today, you can have her back."

"What are you saying, Kaizuka?" Mishima demanded.

Yuki shot a glance at him and shook her head. Mishima sighed in irritation but said nothing more.

"But I haven't forgotten my revenge against you, you know," Yuki added, turning back to Slaine.

"Neither have I," said Slaine.

They gazed at each other silently.

Once again, Professor Bridges was the one to cut in between them.

"If we replace the Aldnoah drive in your Kataphrakt with ours, would you still be able to fly it?" she asked Slaine.

"Huh…? What are you…?"

"According to my watch, we only have three hours left. Your Kataphrakt is the only vehicle quick enough to intercept the missile before it lands. The anti-gravity powers of this Aldnoah drive should be able to halt the impact. I've thought every possibility through, and at this point, it's the only feasible course of action left."

The words that came out of her mouth sounded reasonable and logical, but…

"I'll pilot it!" Mishima hissed. "We can't trust that filthy turncoat!"

"No good," said the professor firmly. "You aren't familiar with the controls. The highest probability of success will occur if Slaine is the pilot."

Yuki could understand. Her mind could grasp the point. And yet…

"So let me get this straight…" she said slowly. "You want to entrust our lives to the guy who murdered my brother?"

"That's right," said Julie Bridges, her expression in deadly earnest.

_No way._

This time, Yuki did not have to ask why. Even if she did not know the woman well, she could see the answer in the professor's eyes.

Still, the professor explained anyway.

"Because it is the most correct and logical decision," she said, "in order to save everyone."

* * *

They spent the next fifteen minutes or so replacing the Aldnoah drive in Slaine's Kataphrakt. Miyazawa, who had been keeping watch outside, told them that the enemy was nowhere in sight yet, but still, Yuki and Mishima worked with renewed urgency. Time was running out, after all.

When they were done replacing the drive, Princess Lemrina held her hand over the blue orb and cried, "Aldnoah, awaken!" Once again, the drive came alight, and the Kataphrakt stirred to life. In that moment, she seemed just as much of a royal princess of Vers as Asseylum once had.

Before he climbed into the Kataphrakt, Slaine knelt in front of the princess and bowed his head.

"I apologise for failing to protect you," he said quietly.

"I'll forgive you if you live," she murmured in response.

Their clothes and faces were flecked with grime and blood, but the picture itself was from a courtly romance of long ago that probably never really happened. Gently, Slaine kissed the princess's hand and straightened himself up. His lips formed the pale ghost of a smile.

"Take care, Your Highness." His green eyes shone with a mixture of tenderness and dogged determination. "I swear to you that I will return to your side."

And with that short and dutiful exchange complete, he turned his back to her and climbed into the Kataphrakt. Princess Lemrina brought her pale white fingers to her slightly parted lips and stared after him forlornly. When Slaine's Kataphrakt was gone, she remained on the sands and gazed up at the deep blue sky, waiting.

"I'll take you back to the cove," Yuki said gently.

Princess Lemrina neither acquiesced nor denied her, so after a moment of silence, Yuki picked her up and carried her inside. She was light and flimsy but awkward to carry, almost like a paper crane. Yuki did not know the right way to hold her, though somehow she managed.

Lemrina said nothing when they were inside, only sighed and closed her eyes with a frown.

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" Yuki said.

Lemrina's eyes fluttered open.

"What does it matter to you?" she asked sharply.

"N-nothing, I suppose," Yuki spluttered, looking away shamefacedly.

_The poor girl, _she thought. The last few hours must have been nothing but a nightmare in slow motion for her.

But if only she hadn't existed, then it would have been so easy to pull the trigger…

At that moment, Princess Lemrina spoke up, watching Yuki's face carefully. "Tell me, do you _really _plan to give me back to Slaine?"

"Well, of course, I…"

"Because, you know, the better revenge would be to prevent us from ever seeing each other again."

Yuki wondered how the princess could say something like that. How could she speak of her own suffering so coldly and clinically?

"Of course, it wouldn't really make _him_ suffer," Lemrina went on. "He doesn't care for me, only principles. So if you kill me, the war will continue. But eventually, the Empire of Vers will die. Why perpetuate the cycle of hatred by letting me live?"

She was really nothing like her sister, even if she held herself together with the same determination, even if she was young and pretty, even if the same blood coursed through her veins.

"I-I can't do that. You're innocent, Princess Lemrina…"

"Innocent, you say? Oh, yes, very innocent. I don't shoot people, so that makes me innocent."

The twisted, ironic smile on Lemrina's lips spoke more than her acrimonious words ever could.

_Today, this girl turned fifteen,_ Yuki remembered with dull sadness as she stumbled back a step. "What are you talking about…?"

"No matter what I do, I cannot break out of my cage. They will kill and kill and kill because they've reduced me to an idea." Lemrina laughed scornfully. "It doesn't matter if Slaine stops that missile. They were already massacring the Terrans in Japan. I know because it was my actions that led to the killing. Because I tried to break free from my cage."

The words poured out of her mouth, the litany of a wakeful nightmare. Yuki almost could not bear to listen. When she spoke, she did not look Lemrina in the eyes. "Do you want to die…?"

"No," said Lemrina. "I want to live. I wish Slaine were here. Maybe I do love him. Oh, why am I telling _you _this? You're the enemy."

_You're the enemy._

Yuki thought of a young girl with a voice as clear as a bell, whose beauty was matched only by the strength of her convictions. The girl her brother had loved.

The enemy.

"Princess…" Yuki swallowed. "Have you ever thought of making peace?"

"Peace!" The princess laughed. "Whose peace?"

"Between Earth and Mars."

Instead of answering the question, Princess Lemrina shot a question back at her. "What about you? Can you do it?"

Yuki thought of Slaine. "I… well…"

Lemrina eyed Yuki, watching the soldier's face crease with hesitation. After a moment, the princess spoke up for herself. "Nobody would listen to me if I asked for peace. Nobody listened to my sister either."

"Your sister…"

Yuki's lip trembled.

_Oh, Asseylum. _How would she have reacted if she saw what had taken place today?

Now that Slaine was not in her sight, Yuki's head began to lighten, but her chest weighed her down instead. Was forgiving her brother's murderer really what it meant to create peace? Did they have to put down their guns and get along? It only occurred to Yuki now what a truly ludicrous thing Asseylum had been asking for.

Bringing Princess Lemrina to the UFE Headquarters would achieve nothing. Why should the authorities trust a Martian princess again after what happened last time?

_But still…_

"I'm sure your sister would have wanted you to live," Yuki finished.

Lemrina was not satisfied. "What do you know of what my sister thinks?"

Instead of responding, Yuki shook her head and stood up. She walked over to her bag, which she had asked Professor Bridges to hold onto. Then she pulled out the box containing her brother's mementos, along with a single paper crane. She had thrown away most of the cranes, but she had kept the prettiest one she had made. Looking at it, a strange sort of tranquility fell over Yuki. She was glad she had kept at least one crane.

"What are you doing?" Princess Lemrina demanded.

Yuki did not respond until she had found what she was looking for. Then she walked back to Princess Lemrina and placed the object in her hand.

"What is this…?" The princess looked up at Yuki in confusion.

Yuki smiled as she scrunched her eyes shut in fond recollection.

"A good luck charm. I think it belonged to your sister."

* * *

Only three hours left.

The Tharsis soared through the sky, quickly gaining speed. Without prediction powers, Slaine resorted to looking over his shoulder every few moments. He felt naked without the power, fearful of the stillness around him. Apart from a few islands dotting the surroundings, the ocean stretched as far as the eye could see. Perhaps it would go on forever.

_Faster. Faster…_

The thought of Lemrina, alone with the Terrans, spurred him on. The way they had mistreated her… Had Asseylum been treated that way too? Had Kaizuka Inaho thrust _his _tongue down her mouth like a wretched beast? Perhaps it _was _a good thing that Slaine had killed him.

_Faster…!_

"I'll protect you, Your Highness…" Slaine muttered fervently, even though it was all so very, very late and the damage had already been done.

He would make it in good time. He would stop the missile and return to the princess's side.

He would._ He would._

Slaine lifted his eyes… and saw a laser soaring through the skies aimed straight at him.

He only narrowly managed to swerve out of the way in time, his heart thumping frantically from a mixture of panic and adrenaline. "What was that?!"

A familiar voice in his intercom responded to Slaine's guttural cry.

"Well, well, Terran. Like a dog, you've come crawling back to your owners. Even after you've turned traitor… I always thought the right idea was to put you out of your misery permanently."

Another laser flew in Slaine's direction. And not just one - multiple lasers from multiple directions.

Without the Tharsis's prediction powers, Slaine was unable to see where the shots were coming from, but he gripped his controls tightly as he had never gripped them before and thought of the princess as he jerked out of harm's way. A red Kataphrakt loomed in the distance - Slaine had seen it before.

"Count Marylcian…!"


	11. II) The Impossible

**10\. The Impossible**

In a flash, Slaine understood what had happened.

Because those UFE soldiers had forced Slaine to take the princess and fly away in the Tharsis, the Versians had assumed he turned traitor. Perhaps they thought that Slaine had even assisted the Terrans in breaking into the ship in the first place. It was an easy conclusion to draw.

_Urk… _How did things end up like this?

Count Marylcian cackled with laughter as more and more laser guns detached themselves from his Kataphrakt. His laughing voice sounded abnormally giddy for a man. It was clear he had been looking forward to this confrontation for quite some time.

"You'll never defeat my Herschel!" he declared.

His confidence certainly made sense. Slaine's heart sank as he took stock of the Herschel's guns. At this point, there were too many for him to count. If they encircled him - and they would, very soon - he would never be able to avoid the lasers. There was no cover over the Pacific Ocean, after all. For the first time in a long time, it occurred to Slaine that Earth's endless blue sky was a prison.

Unable to see the future anymore, Slaine sat frozen in his seat for a moment - and then gasped in agonised shock as a laser slammed into the back of his machine. Warning signs instantly flashed up on the control panel, prompting Slaine to swing the Tharsis around and shoot back at the gun that had fired at him. But it was hopeless - the gun spiralled out of the way as if it possessed a mind of its own. Like a master puppeteer, Count Marylcian controlled his guns perfectly from a safe distance.

"It's hopeless to think a puny Terran like you could defeat me! I'm amazed you even lasted this long." Slaine could practically _hear _Marylcian sneering. "I think I'll toy with you a little longer."

Slaine scowled. Even in his panic, he could sense the fury growing within himself."I don't have time for this!"

"Oh, so you want to die quicker, then? I can happily oblige."

There was no more avoiding the lasers. Slaine doubted he could manage it, even if he had possessed the Tharsis's prediction powers. It was one thing to see the trajectory, another to succeed in avoiding the strike.

He didn't have prediction powers… but he did have the Deucalion's Aldnoah drive.

Slaine's gaze frantically turned to the control panel. "Switch on the anti-gravity shield…" he muttered as his fingers pressed the button. The machine immediately hummed in response, as if responding to the urgency in Slaine's voice.

He managed it just in time. At that very moment, the lasers that would have collided with the Tharsis halted in midair. It was a simple enough matter for Slaine to avoid them now.

"Oh?" Marylcian's tone changed. "It seems the dog has learned a few parlour tricks."

Panting slightly from the narrow escape, Slaine watched as the lasers he had stopped for that fleeting moment soared through the open sky. It seemed the Deucalion's anti-gravity power worked less effectively the further away the object was from his Kataphrakt.

"Interesting…" Marylcian went on. "But you can't run forever!"

Then Slaine was bombarded with lasers from all directions.

The anti-gravity shield managed to stop the lasers momentarily, but it became clear to Slaine at once that the power had a serious limitation. It was better equipped to handle individual targets rather than many; its surface area influence was very limited. The more Slaine tried to spread out the shield, the weaker the anti-gravitational hold over the lasers became.

One stray laser managed to force its way through the shield and blow off the covering on the Tharsis's left arm. Cursing, Slaine swerved out of the way. If only he could get his hands on the Herschel's guns. They were shooting from a far distance, while Slaine's anti-gravity power was only truly effective at short range. The conditions favoured Marylcian in every way.

"You've lost, Terran!" the count laughed, having come to the exact same conclusion Slaine had. "But why are you in such a hurry? Here, go fetch!"

Another volley of lasers poured out of the Herschel's guns, which Slaine only barely managed to fend off even with the aid of the anti-gravity shield.

"Damn it… damn it!" Slaine yelled.

He was wasting time. He needed to stop that he had to stop and deal with Count Marylcian first.

_But how?_

Slaine gulped and looked around his surroundings with harried eyes. There was nowhere to run. The only place he could go was _down, down, down_ \- into the endless depths of the ocean, where no human being could ever survive.

* * *

Yuki stepped out of the cove and looked up at the spotless blue sky. It really was turning out to be quite a fine day.

"The perfect day to launch a nuclear missile," Professor Bridges remarked beside her.

"Huh?" Yuki blinked.

"There's no weather interference," Professor Bridges said matter-of-factly. "The UFE couldn't have picked a better day, logistically speaking."

Somehow, those words sounded extra chilling coming from the mouth of a sweet-faced older lady.

"How's the princess?" Professor Bridges asked, changing the subject. She had probably noticed the discomfort on Yuki's face.

"She's asleep now. It seems all the stress has made her exhausted."

"I see. That's understandable." Professor Bridges kept her gaze fixed on the sky.

Yuki glanced at her sideways. Without the professor, they would never have figured out how the Aldnoah drive worked. They would never have won Slaine's cooperation. They would never have made it this far. But even so…

"Are we really going to survive?" Yuki wondered aloud. "Can we really defeat the Martians?"

"I wonder," said the professor.

The two of them were silent, lost for a moment in a sense of enormity beyond conscious imagining.

"Have you ever read _The War of the Worlds_?" asked the professor suddenly.

"By H.G. Wells?"

"That's the one."

"No," said Yuki. She had never been much of a book lover. She remembered Inaho had read it, though. He said all the science was inaccurate. He had been particularly hung up on something about tripods.

"It's a story about a Martian invasion," Professor Bridges explained. "It became very popular again after Vers was founded. Even though the Martians in the story were faceless monsters, nothing like the Versians."

_No, that makes sense,_ Yuki thought, glancing at Mishima who was currently patrolling the area, a frown fixed on his face.

"It really was a very stark, bleak story," Professor Bridges went on. "In the movie, they drop an A-bomb on the Martians and it doesn't leave a scratch on them."

Yuki shivered. _Only the Terrans will die because of that missile,_ Slaine had said. She did not trust him, but she had no reason to disbelieve that particular opinion of his.

Even if Slaine did manage to stop the missile (which Yuki was not sure would happen), what would happen after that?

Yuki had never felt so small in her life.

* * *

"It is futile!" Count Marylcian cried in glee.

Slaine was cornered in the open sea. Twenty minutes had already passed - the Count really was toying with him, it seemed.

As long as the fight went on, Slaine held onto a vain hope that he could outfly the Herschel's guns, but Marylcian was right - it _was _futile. The longer the battle continued, the more that became abundantly clear.

Time was ticking on. Would he even make it in time to stop the missile if he managed to break free? Slaine wondered, and then shook his head.

_I'm sorry… I failed you, princess…_

Asseylum's dead body flashed through his mind. She would never smile at him again. She would never ask him to teach her about Earth again.

He saw Lemrina too. He saw the cage she was trapped in. He saw the way the Terrans had harmed her, the way they used her for their own ends.

If only he had never let either of them go down to Earth. If only… If only…

No, it was impossible. Everything was so impossible.

Right now, was he fighting an ally or an enemy? He could not tell. As the lasers rained upon him, Slaine knew that there was only one way he could go now.

After all, there was no such thing as miracles.

And with that thought burned in his mind, he plunged headfirst into the ocean.

* * *

"So what happened in the ending?" Yuki asked, turning back to the professor.

"Of what?"

"_The War of the Worlds._"

"Oh." Professor Bridges smiled. "The Martians die."

"But how?"

"It wasn't human weapons that killed them. They didn't develop immunity to Earth diseases, so eventually they fell sick and died. I suppose you could say it was nature that killed them."

Yuki made an impatient noise. "That's not going to work in this case."

"I wonder," said Professor Bridges.

* * *

Even underwater, Slaine could not escape the guns. At least they could not surround him entirely. The guns pushed through the water almost as quickly as the Tharsis did. Slaine plunged deeper and deeper into the ocean's embrace, until the light shining above water was almost invisible.

Marylcian's Kataphrakt hovered somewhere above water. Even from this distance, Slaine could hear the count's sneering voice echoing inside the Tharsis. "You think you can escape me?"

Slaine did not reply. Instead, he gritted his teeth tighter.

The last time he had been in the water was when his Sky Carrier crashed into the open sea. As the watery prison closed around Slaine's machine, flashbacks from that terrible moment came back to him. The water had swamped the cockpit, leaving nothing untouched. The last thing Slaine had known before he lost consciousness was the water's icy touch creeping around his neck.

And he had other memories too, from when he was younger. He remembered the first time he met Princess Asseylum. If she hadn't brought her lips to his, the water would have strangled him from inside.

Not a single drop had managed to slip inside the cockpit of the Tharsis so far, but everywhere he looked the world was entirely subsumed in water. The problem with Martian Kataphrakts was that the screens were so transparent that Slaine was tempted to believe that he could reach out and touch the water with his own hands. Any moment now, the entire ocean would tear his world apart and swallow him whole.

No, that wouldn't happen. He _knew _that.

…but what if…? Just say if…?

Slaine attempted to shake off the icy fingers tightening around his chest. It was becoming difficult to breathe in here. Was it all his imagination or was he really going to…?

He bit his lip until a sharp pain registered in his mind, but it did not stop the cold panic from touching against his beating heart. If he closed his eyes, he was sure that he would never wake up again. And still, he plunged further into the watery darkness.

_Deeper… deeper…_

To his right, he saw a flash of lasers. It was the only thing that reminded him that he was not alone in this aquatic prison. In a way, they were almost a comfort.

Quickly, Slaine looked over his shoulder. The lasers were slowing down now as the water was becoming denser. But the Tharsis continued to speed through the water as if completely unaffected by the water pressure. Before, Slaine had struggled for his life, but now he dodged Marylcian's attacks with ease.

"What's happening?!" Count Marylcian was evidently starting to show some frustration, judging by the shrillness of his voice.

To that, Slaine smiled grimly. It was just as he expected.

"You're the one who can't escape," he declared.

Before Slaine's eyes, the Herschel's guns were starting to warp and bend. They were made primarily for space combat and so were helpless against extreme underwater pressure. The pressure was only amplified by gravity as they ventured deeper into the ocean. Slaine was managing to protect the Tharsis with the anti-gravity shield, but that certainly did not apply to the Herschel's guns.

"Impossible!" Marylcian cried.

There were no oceans left on Mars, so of course Marylcian had no inkling of how water pressure worked at this level of depth. By the time he noticed what was happening, the guns had stopped working altogether.

The Count was finished.

Slaine turned his machine around. There was no point running away any longer. "The ocean might be vast, but it holds no freedom for people like us," he explained. "Here, your attacks are confined."

As Slaine sped past the Herschel's nonresponsive guns, he could hear Marylcian gasping in agony and disbelief. Slaine paid no heed to him.

Instead, he glanced at the time displayed on his control panel. An hour-and-a-half had passed since the fight with Count Marylcian had begun. By the time he emerged from the water, he would only have one hour left to intercept the missile. Slaine had wasted far too much time. Would he still be able to make it in time?

"Damn it…" he muttered.

"Wait right there, Terran! You think you've won already?!" Marylcian cried. His Kataphrakt was probably still somewhere above the water, waiting for Slaine to emerge.

"If you insist on getting in my way, I will have to kill you," Slaine responded flatly.

"You impertinent Terran…!"

It seemed the Count was not giving up without one final fight. Slaine did not know if he was stupid or merely assured of his victory, even after the tables had been turned.

Slaine closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"_Sorry? _What are you saying _sorry_ for?!"

Ah. Marylcian had a point.

Slaine thought back to that moment on the ship when he had Kaizuka Yuki at his mercy. If he had not said sorry, so many things would have turned out differently. In the end, sorry only meant something to the living. Why say it to dead men?

"Very well then," said Slaine, opening his eyes.

He was ready for Marylcian when he came out of the water.

As he expected, Marylcian had kept hold of one gun. It was a simple matter to shield against a single laser strike. Slaine deflected Marylcian's attack with a swipe of the Tharsis's arm, activating the anti-gravity shield with one smooth motion.

"Don't think you've beaten me, you traitor! Who do you think you are, Terran?"

Slaine placed his Kataphrakt's arm on Marylcian's gun, channelling an extra strong gravitational pull onto the gun. The weapon instantly fell from the Herschel's grasp, causing a miniscule splash in the ocean.

"Give it up, Count Marylcian."

Instead of facing defeat, the Herschel grabbed the Tharsis's arm with both of its metallic hands.

"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!"

"No, you won't," said Slaine.

With the Tharsis's other arm, he cut the Herschel neatly in two, causing it to fall into the ocean as well. The Kataphrakt caused a bigger splash than the gun did. It did not re-emerge after it had sunk.

Not that Slaine waited around to see. He had already sped off into the sky. As he pressed onwards, his heart pounded in desperation.

_Please, let me make it on time…_

* * *

"It's almost time," Professor Bridges announced.

The professor had been extraordinarily calm throughout it all, especially for a civilian. Now, even she looked around restlessly and fidgeted uncomfortably, just as Yuki was probably doing. Yakushima Island was well outside the radius of the expected strike zone, but they would probably be able to detect the damage even from here.

It was time to see if Slaine had kept his word.

Inside the cove, Lemrina appeared to have awoken from her fitful sleep. Yuki strongly suspected that she had been having a nightmare.

"Is it time yet?" the princess asked, dismissing Yuki's offer for water with a slow shake of her head. Her face was pale, but her expression was firm, as if she had come to some sort of decision. Yuki noticed that Lemrina was clutching Asseylum's pendant tightly in her hand, perhaps for comfort.

"Not yet," said Yuki with a smile, placing her hand over the princess's. "Whatever happens, you won't die. Rest assured of that. If Slaine Troyard never comes back, we won't give you back to Vers. I won't tell the UFE headquarters about you either."

Lemrina's expression did not change. "I see. You're more of a fool than I thought."

Was it just Yuki's imagination or did something wistful flicker in Lemrina's eyes, even as her mouth remained still?

Just as Yuki opened her mouth to respond, Mishima came into the cove. Lemrina stiffened visibly at the sight of him. For his part, he ignored her.

"Kaizuka, what are you waiting for?" he demanded. "We have to go!"

Yuki detected a new urgency in his voice. "What happened?"

She noticed that Mishima was holding the Aldnoah drive that Slaine had turned off and removed from the Tharsis. The light of Aldnoah shone in Mishima's hands. Because Slaine had relinquished his privilege from the Tharsis in order to make use of the Deucalion's drive, it seemed Mishima was now able to activate the Tharsis's drive.

Far from looking pleased with himself, Mishima was frowning. "This thing shows visions from the future!"

"What?"

Yuki almost did not want to ask what he had seen. Had the worst come to pass? She opened her mouth and-

"Slane! Did something happen to Slaine?!" Lemrina's voice cracked.

"I don't know about him. I don't know what will happen to Japan either…" Suddenly, his voice cracked too. He turned to Yuki and grabbed her by the shoulders. "The Martians will be here soon, Kaizuka! I saw them kill me!"

Yuki froze.

"You… saw that…?"

"Yes, that's why we have to go now! Come on, Kaizuka!" He tugged her by the arm.

But Yuki remained still. Her mind still struggled to process this new development.

"What… about the others…?"

"I don't know," Mishima admitted. "I only saw myself."

Yuki desperately tried to straighten her thoughts. "The Martians are coming for us, then."

"That's right." He tugged on her arm again, this time more insistently. "We'll fly to the nearest UFE base. Take the girl with us. Hurry! There's not much time!"

Realising now what the situation had come to, Yuki swung around and faced Lemrina. "Princess…"

"I'm not coming with you. I'll wait here for Slaine," Lemrina said firmly.

Yuki could see that the princess had made up her mind. The caged bird had decided which prison she preferred.

"Then we'll take you by force," Mishima said grimly, taking a step towards her.

"_Stay back!"_

Lemrina's voice rang out shrilly, tinged with fear and desperation and - beneath it all - a cold touch of ruthlessness. For a soldier like Yuki, it was a familiar tone of voice.

Before Yuki or Mishima could react, Lemrina pulled out something she had been sitting on. When she saw what it was, Yuki realised that it had been a mistake to perceive the princess as a helpless girl without a choice. Yuki should never have left her alone for even a moment.

It was the Glock 17 Yuki had given Professor Bridges back at the Okinawa base. Lemrina had somehow managed to take it without the professor noticing. So this, Yuki realised dimly, had been the source of the princess's grim resolve earlier.

Lemrina's hand trembled; she grasped the handgun awkwardly with her fingers, threatening to drop it at any moment. Instead of pointing the gun at Yuki or Mishima, she turned it to her own head.

Even when driven to the brink, Princess Lemrina did not possess the soul of a murderer, it seemed.

"I'll kill myself. Take one more step and I'll blow my brains to pieces."


	12. II) The Rational Choice

**11\. The Rational Choice**

As soon as Yuki heard those words, something in her chest tightened and then, curiously enough, let go. Inadvertently, she let out a soft sigh.

Yuki understood immediately that Lemrina's threat was a bluff. The princess had no intention of killing herself. How could she? Her strongest desire was to be reunited with Slaine.

Lemrina's hands were shaking and her eyes were bright with desperation, but surely she knew that her actions were self-defeating. If she had wanted to kill herself, she should have done so already. By pointing the gun at her own head, Lemrina was not declaring suicidal intent but a stance.

_This is my choice._

Beneath the fear and desperation, Lemrina's will shone through her eyes, clear and unmistakable.

Yuki realised that if she forced Lemrina to come with her now, she would be denying the girl her very humanity.

Realistically speaking, very little had changed about their situation. Right from the beginning, Lemrina had been their prisoner. Yuki had promised that she would not take Lemrina to the UFE Headquarters, but it was a promise she could turn her back on at any moment, and Lemrina knew that more than anyone.

_Will you really stay true to your promise?_

Yuki could not take her eyes away from Lemrina's intense, blue-eyed gaze. She knew what the princess was asking, but did not know the answer.

Beside her, Mishima cursed and reached for his own gun. Yuki reacted on instinct. "Stop!" she cried, thrusting her arm in front of him. Then to Lemrina, she said, "Put down the gun… please…"

She wanted to be firm and decisive, but her voice cracked and trembled at the seams.

As Yuki stood still in indecision, Mishima pushed her hand aside, walked over to Lemrina and snatched the gun out of her hands. Lemrina gasped and tried to reach out for the gun, but Mishima grabbed her by the wrist to restrain her. Robbed of movement, Lemrina could only let out a pained, choked sob in reaction.

The immediate threat was gone, but somehow everything had taken a turn for the worse. "Don't make this difficult for us," Mishima said gruffly. Even he had recognised what Lemrina's actions had meant, it seemed. "What do you want to do with her, Kaizuka?"

He looked up at Yuki.

For the first time, it occurred to Yuki that Mishima found the whole situation distasteful as well. She remembered the look of disgust on his face after he had kissed Lemrina. Surely, that disgust had been directed at himself. Yuki had been a fool not to see it earlier.

Mishima manhandled a vulnerable young girl for the sake of their cause - because Yuki had been too hesitant to take that role upon herself. Because someone had to do it.

And now Mishima looked at Yuki for a decision, his unspoken respect for her brimming in his eyes. It was Yuki's judgement that had gotten them this far.

Yuki knew what he wanted. As distasteful as it was, he wanted to keep the princess hostage. To him, it was the sensible - no, the rational choice.

Not for the first time, Yuki wondered what Inaho would have done. She could see his calm face in her mind's eye. As young as he was, he always seemed to know everything. Even if was never very good at expressing his thoughts or feelings, Yuki knew him better than anyone else.

So she asked herself: would he have taken her hostage?

And immediately, the answer came to her.

_No._

The realisation was searing, as if she was seeing the sun for the first time after a long, long nightmare. Of course, Yuki had known all along, but she had refused to let herself think about it. She was not her brother, after all. That was why she had chosen to take revenge, even if it wasn't rational, even if it wasn't right. That was what she had believed.

But in the end, wasn't that, too, a form of rationalisation? An attempt to justify how she suppressed her own humanity? How she suppressed the princess's humanity?

What, then, was the right choice?

As those jumbled thoughts ran through Yuki's mind, Lemrina sobbed and struggled vainly against Mishima's hold. The longer this went on, the more time was being wasted. Yuki knew she had to make her decision quickly. They had passed the point of no return long ago.

_Make decisions as circumstances dictate. If you have to, trust your gut and make the call._

Hadn't she always said those words to Inaho?

Taking a deep breath, Yuki met Mishima's eyes.

"Go, Mishima. Fly to safety," she commanded.

Mishima responded with a brisk nod, though he still looked at her expectantly, wanting to know what she would do.

"As for me," Yuki went on, her eyes flitting over to Lemrina, "I'll stay with the princess."

* * *

"Why?" Lemrina asked her when everyone else was gone. "Why did you do that?"

Yuki thought for a while before she responded. Although Mishima had accepted her decision without question, he had been unable to keep the confusion out of his eyes. Through his point of view, Yuki's actions made no sense. Why put herself in so much danger for the sake of a flimsy promise?

"Because I remembered why I became a soldier."

"Yes, but…" Lemrina still did not seem satisfied. No surprises there.

Yuki looked up at the cloudless blue sky and saw a sea bird fly past. Even now, the sight of it caused a pang in her chest. "I became a soldier for my little brother."

"Your… brother…"

Yuki turned to look at Lemrina, who seemed as if she did not know what to say. Gently, Yuki smiled at her. "Nao-kun's the person I love the most."

She had never uttered the thought aloud after her brother died, but she knew the truth of those words and Inaho had known them too.

"And Slaine… killed him…"

Lemrina was starting to look as if she understood the significance of what Yuki had given up for her sake.

"Yes," said Yuki.

Lemrina looked down, wiser than she was a minute ago. She had seen for herself what people's hearts were capable of when pushed to the brink. In her hand, she held Asseylum's pendant and squeezed it tightly.

Nothing more needed to be said between them.

As the silence stretched out, Yuki looked up at the sky once again, and then she turned her gaze towards Japan. Thirty minutes had passed since the nuclear missile was supposed to have landed on the mainland, but nothing had happened.

It seemed Slaine had kept his word.

* * *

Time passed, but for some reason, the Martians never came to Yakushima Island. If they did come, Yuki did not see them.

Just in case, she and Lemrina hid in the forest, wearing UFE camouflage uniforms. If anyone came by, Martian or Terran, they would probably not notice Yuki or Lemrina unless they scoured the forest in its entirety. Even then, they would likely miss two relatively small people in camouflage. Yuki, on the other hand, had a clear view of the coastline through her binoculars.

They covered themselves with mud and leaves and waited for what felt like an eternity and a half. Yuki was quite certain the princess had never crawled in mud before, but she did not complain, even though the uniform was at least two sizes too big for her. Lemrina would probably have been mortified if she saw her mud-caked face in the mirror. Yuki probably looked no different from her in that sense. But although she was used to getting down and dirty, it was extremely uncomfortable for even the best of soldiers to stay camouflaged for any length of time. Within minutes, Yuki was seized with the urge to scratch her face, not to mention a pernicious barb stuck fast to her leg.

_Bear with it, Yuki, _she schooled herself had to set a good example for the younger girl.

Honestly, it was almost as if she was back in Shinawara, teaching the kids how to steer their Kataphrakts properly. Despite her physical discomfort, Yuki smiled.

"…hey," Lemrina spoke up, interrupting Yuki's train of thought. "What if… what if Slaine doesn't come?"

So she'd finally said it. The worst case scenario.

"I have a radio," Yuki replied. "We'll stay on the island and wait until help arrives. I asked for Mishima to send reinforcements over here."

It was poor consolation and Lemrina knew it. The princess's silence did not bode well.

"Don't worry," Yuki assured her quickly. "Even if no one comes, we'll manage. I've got good survival skills."

"Won't I be a burden?"

Yuki knew that Lemrina was talking about her legs. To be honest, Yuki had not much put thought into how she would deal with that. She couldn't exactly leave the princess on her own while she went scouting for human life or scavenging for food. "Er, um… We'll manage…"

"I can't live on my own," Lemrina said bluntly. "It's physically impossible for me."

_No matter what I do, I cannot break out of my cage. They will kill and kill and kill because they've reduced me to an idea._

Yuki remembered the listlessness in Lemrina's eyes as she had uttered those words. She also remembered the quiet desperation with which Lemrina had pointed that gun at her own head, even if it had done nothing but affirm her own powerlessness in the end.

Unable to kill herself or another person, Lemrina had nevertheless made a choice.

She could not walk or even stand, but she took a stance with her own two feet.

She had met Yuki's gaze without flinching; she had managed to change a person's mind.

"You know what I think?" Yuki said. "Even if you can't live on your own, that doesn't mean you're a burden."

Again, Lemrina said nothing.

"So put your faith in Slaine," Yuki said. "He promised that he would come for you, didn't he?"

Silence. At first, Yuki thought she was never going to respond at all, but then Lemrina spoke up.

"I want Slaine to rescue me, but I don't want to go back to Vers."

It was not the first time Lemrina had made her disdain for Vers clear. It occurred to Yuki that perhaps that was partly the reason Lemrina had been willing to help her captors, even as she refused to cooperate entirely.

"But he will take me back there," Lemrina went on. "I know he will. Because where else is there to go?" Then she said, in a muted voice, "I always, always wished for a knight to rescue me. Is that so wrong?"

Yuki realised that she had no answer to that.

For better or worse, the two of them had made their choices. Perhaps, if Yuki had been a different person, she could have been the knight Lemrina was hoping for, but in the end, Lemrina wanted Slaine. That was the kind of person she was.

For all their differences, Yuki thought she could understand the logic behind Lemrina's desire.

"All right," she said. "It won't take much longer. You've been brave, princess."

Yuki was right - they did not have much longer to wait. About twenty minutes later, she saw the outline of Slaine's Kataphrakt in the azure sky.

He had arrived, just as he had promised.

Yuki was almost certain it was him, but she had to make sure. When the Kataphrakt landed on the beach, Lemrina let out a gasp of anticipation and delight, but Yuki shushed her. "Wait until he gets out."

So for about half a minute longer they waited, until the unmistakable figure of Slaine climbed out of the hatch. He was looking around the coast frantically, no doubt for the princess.

Yuki waited just a little longer to confirm that he was alone, and then she stood up, signalling to Slaine. As soon as he saw that Lemrina was unharmed, his face eased with visible relief. But still, he kept a gun in his hand, and so did Yuki.

The time for their most important exchange had arrived.

* * *

"Put down your gun," Kaizuka Yuki said to him.

Slaine lowered his gun, but did not drop it. He understood that the princess was in no immediate danger. Despite all the mud and grime on Lemrina's face, there was no fear in her eyes. But still, for her sake, Slaine remained on guard; his fingers did not loosen around his gun.

His eyes flitted across the coast. Where was the enemy's fighter plane? He could not see any of the UFE soldiers who had assisted Kaizuka Yuki.

Were they hiding somewhere, or…?

"It's just the two of us here," Kaizuka Yuki said as she carried Lemrina over to him. It was as if she had read his thoughts. "I told the others to escape."

"Why?"

"Because if you betrayed me here, they would not have to suffer the consequences."

She met his gaze calmly.

Slaine understood that Kaizuka Yuki did not trust him. Or, to put it more precisely, she trusted him as much as he trusted her.

And yet here she was, meeting him halfway.

"I promised you that you could have the princess back," she said.

Something appeared to have changed about her demeanour, but he could not put his finger on it. She had not forgiven him, he knew that much. Even if the blazing fire of her hatred was gone for now, an air of bitterness and resentment still clung to the downward turn of her lips.

They would never be allies. Kaizuka Yuki would be denying her own humanity if she pretended to forgive him for the sake of a compromise. They both understood that.

And somehow, that understanding was what enabled them to finally cast away their guns.

Slaine stood before Kaizuka Yuki, completely unarmed, reaching out his arms in order to accept the princess's mud-stained body. Throughout it all, Lemrina smiled at him. "I'm fine. I'm okay. They never hurt me, Slaine."

Slaine hesitated, remembering with searing precision the moment when Mishima had thrust his tongue down the princess's throat. At that very moment, Kaizuka Yuki let go of Lemrina, and Slaine felt the familiar weight of the young girl in his arms. Right then, the past stopped mattering entirely. "I'm glad you're all right," he murmured. "I'm so glad."

"It's all right, Slaine. We'll be okay." She reached out and touched his face with the warmth of her palm. She might have been a prisoner for half a day, but she sought to comfort him first. He did not realise that his eyes were brimming with tears until she moved her hand away and he saw the glistening moisture on her fingertips.

Blinking firmly, for his hands were too occupied to wipe his eyes, Slaine looked up at Kaizuka Yuki. For the first time, he saw that her lips were tilted up in a tired smile of relief.

"Thank you," she said, "for keeping your promise."

Even now, part of Slaine expected that a squad of UFE soldiers would appear out of nowhere and shoot him down, but the temporary truce held. He nodded curtly. Things had progressed surprisingly smoothly so far, but he wanted to be out of the place as soon as possible.

For a moment, Kaizuka Yuki said nothing as Slaine began to walk back to the Tharsis. Then, just as he reached the machine, she spoke up.

"Tell me… why did you kill my brother?"

Slaine stopped.

Ah, of course she would want to know the answer to that. Not that she could have reasonably expected him to say much. All this time, she must have assumed he had killed Inaho because they were on opposite sides of a war. In that case, his reasons were perfectly natural.

But Kaizuka Yuki was not satisfied. "What connection do you have with my brother? He was no stranger to you, was he? Answer me, Slaine Troyard."

She must have worked that out from Eddelrittuo's message. In response, Slaine turned his gaze north.

"That day over Tanegashima… It was me in the Sky Carrier."

He heard Kaizuka Yuki gasp. "Then… then…" She gulped. "You saved our lives…"

Did he? Ah, yes, he remembered something like that. Of course, at the time, he had only cared about finding Princess Asseylum…

Some kind of dark emotion must have come over his face because Lemrina blinked and looked up at him uncertainly. "Slaine…?"

Dumbly, he gazed back at the princess in his arms. All of a sudden, he remembered everything he had wanted to do that day, when he saw Asseylum at Tanegashima. Yes, he had wanted to take her into his arms and run away with her. Forget the war. Nothing mattered but Asseylum's safety.

But now…

"Nao-kun shot you down…" Kaizuka Yuki said numbly. "I… I…"

He looked over his shoulder at her. She was gazing down at the ground, her long black hair covering her face like a curtain.

Perhaps, right to the very end, she had harboured thoughts of taking revenge, but now she was lost. The next time they met on the battlefield, would they be enemies or friends? He did not know the answer, and evidently, neither did she.

It occurred to Slaine that if Inaho's death had never stood between them, then he and Kaizuka Yuki could have been…

He shook his head. There was no point thinking about that now.

"Goodbye, Kaizuka Yuki," he said.

She seemed to have come to a decision as well. "Goodbye, Slaine Troyard," she said, looking up. "Goodbye, Princess Lemrina."

She smiled - and this time, her smile was not tired. It was a nice smile, Slaine thought. A bit like Princess Asseylum's. It had been such a long time since he had seen a smile like that. It was enough to prompt him to hesitantly return the gesture.

Finally, she turned away, but not before she uttered her parting words.

"I'm glad I chose to spare you…"

Slaine watched her walk a few paces - and then suddenly she collapsed without a sound. An arrow went through her head, causing blood to spray.

For a moment, Slaine did not comprehend what he had just seen. He merely stared at Kaizuka Yuki's fallen body, his mouth agape. Even from this distance, he was left with no doubt that she had died instantly.

"What's going on, Slaine?" Lemrina demanded. She had heard the arrow's whistle, but had no view of Kaizuka Yuki's impaled body. Slaine preferred to keep it that way, and so he did not respond. He could not have found the words to express himself in any case.

Somewhere to his left, a Vers Kataphrakt appeared quite literally out of nowhere, wielding a mechanical crossbow. It looked like a centaur, the mythical horse man of Greek legend. The moment Slaine saw it, he knew who its pilot was.

"Countess Rafia…"

Countess Rafia's Kataphrakt, the Scandia, was able to use a form of optical camouflage that prevented even the most advanced of technology from detecting her. Just how long had she been lying in wait on the shore?

Countess Rafia climbed out of the Scandia and inspected Kaizuka Yuki's dead body. She looked quite pleased with herself. Then she looked at Slaine and tutted like a nosy housewife.

"You shouldn't negotiate with the Terrans. You should just kill them before they get under your shoe."

There was something horribly grotesque about the way she smiled, even if it was the sort of pleasant, casual smile one would see any day from a person of average happiness.

It was clear that she had not heard the conversation that had taken place between Slaine and the UFE soldier, but she had seen the hostage transfer take place and had pieced together what had happened.

"At any rate, I'm glad the princess is safe," she went on briskly. "Those Terran rats hid themselves well. I didn't think anyone was around here at all. I was starting to get bored of waiting."

"Yes," Slaine said. His voice was dull and mechanical. "I'm glad the princess is safe as well."

"Good. We should head back then."

"Yes," said Slaine. "Yes, we should."

* * *

It was as if Slaine had never been away.

The ship was still docked at Tanegashima, though the island itself was occupied by soldiers now. There were no Terrans around, though some wreckage of Kataphrakts and fighter planes remained dotted along the shore. Everywhere Slaine looked, he witnessed the same old story: a resounding victory for the forces of Vers - along with an utter annihilation of the enemy.

What surprised Slaine was catching sight of Count Saazbaum on the dock waiting for him. He had evidently been anticipating Slaine's return for some time. As soon as Slaine climbed out of the Tharsis, Count Saazbaum walked up to him and ruffled his hair affectionately. It was an open display of fatherly emotion that Slaine had never witnessed from his real father, let alone the Count who had plotted Princess Asseylum's death.

"You did well, Slaine," he said, not for the first time. "You single-handledly thwarted the enemy's plot."

It turned out he was referring to the nuclear attack that Slaine had managed to stop.

Kaizuka Yuki had wanted him to stop that nuclear strike for the sake of sparing the lives of those who still lived in Japan. But that very same initiative had led to countless Martian lives also being saved.

In fact, the more Slaine learned about the situation, the more he learned that the Orbital Knights had indeed left themselves wide open for a nuclear attack. The Orbital Knights in Japan had been too distracted by the false alarm at Okinawa and the attack at Tanegashima to watch for air attacks from Washington. Kaizuka Yuki had set the stage for the UFE's success, but her ultimate goal had averted that very same success.

And so, Slaine became a hero.

Count Marylcian might have assumed Slaine was an agent for the Earth forces, but no one else entertained the thought now, especially after they saw the results. Why would a traitor stop the UFE's most powerful weapon _and _rescue the princess from her captors?

For the first time, the soldiers gazed at him with open respect instead of ambivalence or disgust. Slaine never found out if Count Saazbaum had a hand in influencing everyone's opinions or if it just happened to turn out that way. Either way, it did not really matter. Somehow, things had fallen into place.

Even the Orbital Knights had warmed to him, Slaine realised dimly, although at the time he could not wrap his head around the implications. Like the princess, he was too exhausted by everything that had happened to think about it properly. He had a long shower and then slept for a day. When he woke up, nothing had changed, except his mind was refreshed.

Everything had turned out for the best, he told himself. Kaizuka Yuki and her forces might have perished, but the Japanese mainland was saved, just as they had desired. The princess was safe as well. Slaine ought to be glad that, the odious Count Marylcian aside, relatively few Martian lives had been lost in the skirmish. Quite a few had been injured, but only about fifteen died.

When Slaine thought about it rationally, nothing truly catastrophic had happened. But still, he could not shake the bitterness from his mouth. He longed to talk to Lemrina, for she was the only other person who understood the true series of events. When he asked for an audience, though, he was politely rebuffed. The princess was still too tired to see anyone, the doctors told him. She had been through a very difficult experience. It was an argument that made sense, so Slaine did not press the matter.

And so he was left to wander the ship aimlessly. Everywhere he went, the people smiled at him and congratulated him on a job well done. Slaine dismissed their gratitude not with humility but with sheer blankness, but no one seemed to understand the root of his confusion.

Except maybe Count Saazbaum.

He invited Slaine to eat with him, just as he had when Princess Asseylum had died. Unlike back then, Slaine was not so grief-stricken that he possessed no appetite, but he could not say that he really tasted the food either. Then again, Martian cuisine was like that.

As Slaine picked at his food, Count Saazbaum merely looked at him wryly. "You must seize the opportunities that are given to you, my son."

_My son. _Slaine cringed inwardly. "What opportunities are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the goodwill of the Orbital Knights. As you must know, they are fair weather friends."

"I don't understand. What do you want me to do?"

Count Saazbaum chuckled. "Slaine, you told me that you would fight in the tourney for the princess's hand. Are you still willing to do that?"

"The tourney…?" After everything that had happened, he had forgotten all about that. "That's still being held…?"

"Of course not. As we have discovered, Earth is too dangerous to hold a tourney. After she has recovered, the princess will return to the moon immediately."

"Ah." That made sense. To be honest, Slaine was relieved to hear that. He had been against the wretched tourney since the very beginning. Although he would never have anticipated that the princess would be captured by the enemy, he'd always had a bad feeling about taking Lemrina down to Earth. At this point, not even the most complacent Versian would approve of the princess's continued presence in a warzone. _That, _thought Slaine, _is the end of that._

But the Count was not done speaking. "However, the conditions of winning the princess's hand still apply. She will marry the strongest knight. It would be entirely natural for her to express interest in the man who saved her life."

Slaine blinked several times. He knew that there was no way Count Saazbaum could have foreseen or plotted these events, but it turned out he was a master at making the best out of coincidences.

It took a moment before he could even speak. "You… you mean to suggest that the princess and I are…?"

"I have spoken with her," Saazbaum said smoothly. "She is willing."

But Slaine could only frown.

At last, he had figured out the source of his discontent.

But Saazbaum only chuckled at his reaction. "If you find that so hard to believe, perhaps you should ask her yourself. Tell the doctors you have my permission."

"But I…"

"Slaine, my foolish son," Saazbaum said his name with a smile. "Has it never occurred to you that Princess Lemrina might be in love with you?"

* * *

He paced around the door of Lemrina's chambers for almost half an hour before he went inside.

As he walked in circles, thoughts swirled in his head. Everything about Vers was unfair, he knew - its lopsided military strength, its lack of natural resources, its feudal hierarchy. At this rate, Vers was guaranteed to win the war, but only people like Saazbaum would reap the rewards - bourgeois knights who could deliberately tilt the odds in their favour. No matter what happened, Saazbaum would be able to hold onto his advantage. He had managed to co-opt Princess Asseylum's dreams of compromise for his militaristic agenda. And the same thing went for Kaizuka Yuki, even if he had not killed her himself.

It didn't matter to Slaine if Lemrina cared for him or not. She had no free will, not under this system. As he stood outside her door, Slaine convinced himself of that reality.

Eventually, though, he went inside, because despite all the weary, cynical thoughts circling in his mind, he wanted to hear her words for himself.

When he opened the door, the princess was lying in her chair, her eyes closed. At first, Slaine thought that she was asleep. A strange sense of anticlimax fell over him, and he endeavoured to leave without her noticing. But as soon as the automatic doors opened, Lemrina's eyes snapped open. When she caught sight of him, her gaze softened.

"Slaine…"

"I hope I have not caused you any disturbance," he said with a bow.

"I'm so glad you're here, Slaine," said Princess Lemrina. "Everything's been so confusing."

Slaine could not have agreed more. Just as he thought, only Lemrina could possibly understand what had happened. He smiled encouragingly at her. Apart from some slight grogginess, she seemed to be just fine.

"Count Saazbaum told me that he had been to see you," he said, sitting down in front of her.

Instead of responding to Count Saazbaum's name, Lemrina changed the subject. "Tell me, Slaine. Do you have any dreams?"

"Me? I don't have any dreams…"

"But you hate Vers, don't you?"

He did not - could not - respond. "Your Highness, I…"

"Of course you hate Vers," said Lemrina. "How could you not? Vers has held you in contempt for so long."

That was Princess Lemrina for you. Whenever they were alone together, her words cut to the heart of the matter. As frail as she looked, she wielded her words with fine precision and dexterity. He could never let his guard down around her.

"I've felt it from the moment we first met," she went on, "that you and I have something in common."

As she spoke, he realised that he could not deny the truth of her words. Had they always been true or did it turn out that way through happenstance?

Before he could come to an answer, Lemrina moved her clenched fist. "Slaine, do you recognise this?" she asked, opening her hand.

Slaine stared. Of course he recognised what Lemrina was showing him. How could he not? "H-how…?"

"So it's true," Lemrina said softly. "This belonged to my sister."

Once again, her fingers closed around the luck charm. She must have received it from Kaizuka Yuki, not that it really mattered now that the Terran woman was dead. So much for good luck. Unable to take his eyes away from the pendant, Slaine did not raise his eyes to Lemrina's face, even when she spoke.

"Slaine, tell me… Did Count Saazbaum kill my sister?"

Slaine could not bring himself to answer. For a brief second, all he could hear was the sound of a gunshot in a silent room. Slaine saw Saazbaum's cold, satisfied smile in his mind's eye, and he shuddered.

"I see," said Lemrina, who seemed to have heard Slaine's answer loud and clear through his silence. "I always thought he had an agenda. He might favour you, but you can't exactly disobey him now, can you?"

Slaine found that he could no longer meet Lemrina's eyes.

Meanwhile, the princess went on talking, and Slaine's heart sank further with each bitter word he nodded along to.

"The same goes for me. The only reason I'm alive and well today is because that man has protected me. Vers is rotten to the core and I'm part of the system."

"Do you intend to hold onto your grudge forever?" Slaine asked, looking up.

"Yes," said Lemrina firmly. Then she turned her gaze down. "The closest I came to finding freedom was when those Terrans captured me…"

He had not expected to hear that. "Princess Lemrina…"

"I was so scared, Slaine. I thought that man would kill me." Her lip trembled. "Out there, I was on my own. I would never have fallen into that situation in the first place if it were not for my royal blood, but for once, no one spoke for me."

She closed her eyes and fell silent, probably recalling her experience. When he came for her, she had told him that she was fine, that the Terrans had never hurt her, but perhaps the mental scars were greater than the physical ones.

Eventually, the princess opened her eyes again. She smiled at him, shy and tentative. "Slaine, if we were the only two people in the world, I think I would be happy."

No one had ever said anything like that to Slaine before. For a moment, he was at a loss to respond.

"I know," she said quickly, turning her head away. "I know it's impossible. I know you don't feel the same way. But if I am to be tied down, then I… I would prefer it to be with you."

As soon as she stopped speaking, she covered her mouth with her hands. Her cheeks were bright red. Although she had turned her head away from Slaine, she looked at him sideways, her eyes wide and anxious. It was impossible to see the princess as anything but a girl. Even the simplest words could crush her so easily.

He swallowed. "Princess…"

"Will you stay with me, Slaine?" the bastard princess of Mars asked the Terran knight in a whisper. "Will you stay with me forever?"

Slaine closed his eyes.

He thought of Asseylum and her shattered dreams of peace. He thought of Kaizuka Yuki and the friendship that almost was. He thought of Vers and the war and all the injustices that seemed so simple and impossible to fix.

A crazy thought came to mind. What if he and Lemrina defected? But that would never work, because Vers was too strong and the Terrans were far too weak to take it down. Besides, the Terrans had exploited the princess too. Even if Kaizuka Yuki had kept her promise, there was no guarantee that all the Terrans could be so understanding. Most of them were probably like that man who had kissed Lemrina. Scum of the earth.

Right. The princess was safest with Vers, hidden in her cage. The only way to survive within the system was to become part of it.

Was hers an act of rebellion or submission? He could not tell. No matter who she chose to be with, she would remain a prisoner of Vers. What Slaine did know for certain was that she had made the choice for herself. He had seen it in her eyes.

He and Princess Lemrina wanted the same thing, but they would probably never find it.

_If power is the only thing I can obtain now…_

And so, the knight knelt before his princess and came to a decision.

"If that is your will, then let it be done."

**END PART TWO**

**Author's note: **Whew! This part was a doozy to write. I hope you're enjoying all the twists and turns.

As you've probably noticed, the last two chapters have included subplots from season 2 of the anime, but in a redressed context. This story also ends up in a roughly similar place as episode 18, with Slaine and Lemrina poised to get married. You might say that the plot so far has served as buildup to this moment and that the _real _AU begins next chapter.

To preempt the question, no I'm not a nihilist. I'm an optimist at heart, I swear! I like stories about people aspiring to be humane in the most inhumane of circumstances. If Slaine comes across as a kinder person here, it's deliberate.

By the way, one of my inspirations for this chapter (and the story's themes in general) is the essay "Cold Equations and Moral Hazard" by Cory Doctorow. You can easily find it by Googling the title.

Part Two focused on the war aspect of the story, but in Part Three, we take a break from all the fighting. Hope you look forward to it!


	13. III) Inko

**PART THREE: REPRIEVE**

**12\. Inko**

Spring had come to Siberia.

The snow was at last beginning to melt, leaving the naked trees glistening wet against the clear blue sky. Chirping wood birds flocked to the trees, while large wading birds walked along the mud-caked riverside, stopping frequently to peck at the water. As broken slabs of ice drifted down the Ob River, the shallows came alive with schools of silver fish. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, soon joined in chorus by its pack. Everywhere one looked, the land was slowly waking from a long and devastating winter.

The city, too, was slowly coming alive with signs of human life. In its heyday during the Soviet era, Novosibirsk had been a thriving industrial town, but after Heaven's Fall, almost all its population was driven underground. Only the hydroelectric power plant remained operational, having been secured in a protective dome several years before the war began. But when the spring of 2015 came, the people emerged in trickles, much like squirrels cautiously sniffing the air as they crawled outside their burrows.

People came to Novosibirsk from outside as well, often in jeeps and army vehicles. After months of almost continuous snow and hail, the roads around Novosibirsk were no longer blocked at every pass. Some people even walked to the city on foot with nothing but the clothes on their skins. Most of them were refugees from Central Asia who could now at last make the perilous journey to the world's largest underground shelter city.

When people came to the ruined gates of Novosibirsk, the first thing they saw was an army soup kitchen, run by dedicated volunteers around the clock. The sight of cheerful human faces made for an odd juxtaposition against the mountains of rubble still piling the streets. For the first time in a very long time, the smell of cooking filled the open air. People lined up all the way down the street for food, huddling against each other for warmth.

It wasn't just humans who were drawn to the intoxicating scent of warm food. After a mere few days, the once desolate streets became littered with sparrows. With the birds came friction as well as merriment. Many of the soup kitchen workers shooed the birds away, but the children loved them. One could often see children tossing scraps at the birds as they ran around the rubble playing make-believe war games. Their energy was especially remarkable considering that many of them had been weak with starvation only a few days earlier.

As all of this went on, volunteers bustled around town in an effort to ensure that every single refugee was fed and clothed. When asked how they could remain so pragmatic in the face of such a terrible tragedy, the most common response went along these lines:

"We Russians are resilient. This is nothing compared to what our ancestors have been through."

* * *

By the time Amifumi Inko was discharged from the army hospital, spring had arrived. Her frostbitten fingers had recovered completely by then, though they were still tender and sore. The doctors urged her not to overexert herself, to which Inko nodded and said okay.

Before Inko left, one of the nurses smiled and gave her a toffee apple, for in her eyes Inko had been a model patient. "Remember, if you need anything, we're open twenty-four hours a day."

"If you give her enough of those toffee apples, she really will be back here in no time," said one of the doctors passing by.

Inko laughed and accepted the toffee apple anyway.

Like many large hospitals, the Novosibirsk army hospital smelled of disinfectant. It was also crowded, especially in those tumultuous days after Count Saazbaum's assault. No one really _enjoyed _staying in the hospital, except perhaps to get out of combat duty. But Inko found that she did not really mind being confined to bed all day. Her ward was relatively quiet and peaceful, and for the first time in what felt like years, Inko had the time to read books and watch television.

Objectively speaking, the television shows were not of much interest to someone like Inko. Most of the shows were in Russian. Some of it was old-school Soviet propaganda - these were the most cheerful programs. Despite not understanding a single word of what anyone was saying, Inko enjoyed watching the shows because everyone smiled an awful lot in them.

The books by her bedside were mostly in Japanese. Out of consideration for her age and nationality, the doctors had given her manga to read. Inko had never had much time for manga, having always been an impeccable student before the war began. But now, she read and reread the manga on the table, and she found herself remembering that _oh yes, Okisuke had been a fan of this kind of stuff, right?_ She could see why. The stories really were kind of interesting.

But what Inko spent the most time reading were the letters her parents had sent her. Her family was sheltering in South Korea for the time being and said they would be coming to Novosibirsk in spring. She read each letter until she knew every word of them by heart.

After a while, peace turned to restlessness. No amount of reading or television could satiate the gnawing feelings that grew inside of her day by day. As she tossed and turned in her bed, Inko found herself wondering how the others were doing, whether they were taking care of themselves, whether they were even alive…

And so, when the seasons finally turned and Inko was discharged from hospital, the first thing she did was make her way outside the underground shelter, so that she could see for herself that spring had arrived.

* * *

Rayet crouched by the river and flicked a pebble, watching it skip in the glistening water. As she hunched over, she hugged her knees. The early spring air was still somewhat damp and cold, even though the sun was out. Beside her, Eddelrittuo stood with her hands on her hips, looking more like a small walking mountain of clothing than a human being at the moment.

After a moment of hesitation, Eddelrittuo crouched next to Rayet. The grass was too wet and muddy to sit on.

Rayet said nothing.

"Say… Miss Rayet…"

"Yes?"

"What do you plan to do after this?" Eddelrittuo looked down at the budding grass as she spoke.

"I don't know. I guess I'll head south."

"Is something happening in the south?"

"That's where all the fighting is."

Here at the UFE Headquarters, things were much too peaceful. There hadn't been any attacks from the Martians since last year in December, when Count Saazbaum had launched his landing castle directly at the base. Perhaps it was just as well - the casualties from that battle had been enormous.

"I wonder what I'll do…" Eddelrittuo wondered aloud.

"You can always stay here," Rayet said. "I hear they have three years' worth of food here."

"Well… yes…" Eddelrittuo sighed.

Rayet glanced sideways at her. She could guess the source of the maid's consternation - it was similar to her own.

"You don't fit in," Rayet said.

Eddelrittuo hugged her knees. "They look at me like I'm a ticking time bomb waiting to go off… I think I understand better how Slaine Troyard must have felt."

Rayet had never known this Slaine Troyard person, but he seemed to have been on Eddelrittuo's mind lately. Perhaps that stood to reason. She had, after all, spent the last few weeks of her life attempting to carry out his request. She had argued tooth and nail against the military bureaucracy in order to get that telegram sent to Okinawa. Now that she had achieved her goal, it seemed that all the life had gone out of her.

"I wish I'd never been such a snob to him," Eddelrittuo said, rather pathetically.

"It's too late for that now, isn't it? If you're serious about wanting to get along with Terrans, you might as well go ahead and do it."

"I suppose…"

But Eddelrittuo did not seem satisfied. That stood to reason. Getting along with others was much easier said than done.

Rayet shrugged. What else was there to say, though? She stood up and brushed her legs.

"You can always fight the Martians. The Terrans will like you for that."

"I don't think… that's not…"

"Rayet! Eddelrittuo!"

Eddelrittuo stood up and blinked. Rayet looked over her shoulder.

A girl with short black hair and violet eyes waved at them cheerfully. Rayet recognised her face could not place her name. In response to the girl's greeting, Rayet nodded curtly.

"What a surprise seeing you here!" said the girl with a broad grin. "It's me, Amifumi Inko. Do you remember me?"

"I thought you transferred to another base," Rayet said.

"Oh no," Inko said with a sheepish laugh. "I sort of got sick."

"Huh," said Rayet.

It felt as if Inko wasn't telling the whole story there, but Rayet decided not to press her. It wasn't any of her business.

Meanwhile, Eddelrittuo's face lit up upon seeing the first Terran she recognised in months. She had never spoken to Inko while they were aboard the Deucalion, but now, perhaps, she was willing to make a change.

"I'm glad you're all right," she said, jumping up to Inko. "I'm really glad!"

"Thanks," Inko replied, her mouth curling up into a soft smile. "You too."

Rayet watched silently as this exchange took place. Then she said, "You were close friends with Kaizuka Inaho, won't you?"

The change that came over Inko's face was instantaneous. The smile slid off her lips; she opened her mouth and then closed it dumbly.

"We know who killed him!" Eddelrittuo declared firmly, ever ready to fulfill her duty. "It was Sla-"

"It doesn't matter," Inko interrupted her. "I'm not interested in revenge."

Her lips turned up again, but this time, there was no cheerfulness in her smile.

Rayet frowned. "But why?" Wasn't Inaho her friend? How could she _not _feel any rage coursing through her?

How could she _smile_?

But Inko merely shook her head. "I just don't think there's any point," she said quietly.

* * *

Inko lifted her head. The wind had picked up, causing her fringe to blow across her eyes. It had been so long since the last time she had felt a breeze like this. Her fingers, covered with mittens though they were, tingled from the sudden chill. Inko flexed her fingers, just to make sure that she could still feel them.

The wind was getting colder. Overhead, thin grey clouds floated across the sky, partially obscuring the sun. A shadow had come over Rayet's face.

"I don't get it," she said, turning away. "But whatever."

"Where are you going?" asked Inko, changing the subject.

"South."

"Without a bag or any supplies at all?"

"I'm travelling light."

"Don't be an idiot!" Inko cried, grabbing Rayet's arm. "Even in spring, it's cold. Look!"

For a moment, she thought Rayet would thrust her arm away, but the Martian girl looked up where Inko beckoned.

A light rain had begun to fall.

Eddelrittuo began to shiver loudly, her teeth chattering. For her part, Rayet looked up, blinking the rain droplets out of her eyes. Then she looked back down at the muddy ground and at the dull grey river she had just been admiring. In this part of Russia, nature was as bleak as it was beautiful.

"You can get frostbite, you know, if you stay in the cold too long," said Inko. "That's what happened to me."

"I see," said Rayet.

"Come on," said Inko, tugging on Rayet's arm. "Let's go somewhere warm."

Rayet hesitated.

As the girls stood in momentary indecision, Inko spotted a jeep in the distance. It was moving in their direction. It seemed that the three of them were not alone on this spring day.

Boisterous laughter erupted from the vehicle as it drew near. About three young UFE soldiers, all young men just shy of their twentieth birthday, waved cheerfully to the girls and winked.

"Do you ladies need a ride?" the driver asked, sticking his head out the window. A cigarette hung in his mouth, held in place by his grinning white teeth.

Inko was tongue-tied. Like many girls of her upbringing, she was ill-equipped to respond when strange young men offered her a ride. She was reduced to blushing. "Er… uh… well…"

Unexpectedly, Rayet was the one who responded. "Are you heading back to the base?" One of the men nodded. "If that's the case, we'll come."

And just like that, she walked over to the jeep and climbed inside.

That shook Inko out of her rut. She ran over to Rayet, laughing sheepishly. "Are you _sure_, Rayet? I mean-"

"Didn't you want to go somewhere warm?"

Inko had to admire how matter-of-fact Rayet was. "I suppose," she said, still blushing.

One of the young men helped Inko onto the jeep, patting her on the back once she was on board. He looked a little bit like Calm - blonde and freckled, although he was lankier and his eyes were brown instead of blue. "We'll be back home in a jiffy," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "Well, it's not _really _home, but you get the picture."

The young men were perfectly courteous towards the girls, so after the initial awkwardness, Inko found herself relaxing in their company. Of course, they were still boys, only a few years older than the ones Inko had known in school. They laughed loudly, punched each other jokingly and played cards in the back of the jeep. Eddelrittuo huffed the whole time, probably because the soldiers had a bit of a potty mouth.

For her part, Inko smiled. Back when she was in school, she was always telling the boys to knuckle down and get serious for once. It seemed to her that they never understood the gravity of any situation. It was only later after the world turned to chaos that she realised that, when push came to shove, those scruffy boys grew into men fast.

The only exception was Inaho. But then, Inaho had always been a special case.

After watching the young men silently until they finished a round of cards, Inko nervously asked a question. "What game are you playing?"

"Durak," said the soldier who looked like Calm. "Do you know how to play?"

"Not really…"

"I know how to play," Rayet said.

"Huh?! Really?" Inko turned to Rayet, fascinated.

Rayet nodded, but offered no explanation. She merely picked up the cards and started shuffling them with the consummate ease of an experienced card player.

"Oh, you're game?" said the soldier to her left, grinning lopsidedly in a manner that made him look like Okisuke.

"Well," said Rayet, hesitating. "I-"

"Show us how cardsharp you are!"

Rayet shrugged and started to deal.

Inko watched Rayet play with growing fascination. She had no inkling of the rules, of course, but it seemed to her that Rayet knew what she was doing because she barely paused whenever her turn came. Before Inko knew it, Rayet had gotten rid of all her cards.

"Oooh, she's good!" said the soldiers approvingly.

Was Inko just imagining it or did Rayet just smirk?

"Want to place a bet on the next round?" She dug out a 500 ruble note from her pocket.

Predictably, Rayet won again, this time taking money from the soldiers as well. Somehow, they didn't seem to mind. Rayet blended perfectly with the other soldiers, Inko noticed. She even sort of sat like a man - she sat cross-legged and rested her hands on her knees.

"How vulgar…" Eddelrittuo muttered under her breath.

Back on the Deucalion, Rayet always sat alone and had never really responded to the other girls when they tried to include her in their group. Perhaps Rayet was more used to men and the way they did things, Inko mused. She appeared to lack any form of feminine self-consciousness.

A tomboy like her would probably have gotten along with the boys at Inko's school if she'd been a student there. Or maybe she was kind of girl whom the boys would admire. Inko kept glancing at Rayet's pretty and solemn face, trying to imagine what her smile would look like. If she smiled, she would probably look very cute. That much Inko knew for certain.

Rayet had just won her third round when the jeep came to a stop at the city gate. "And a good thing too," said the soldier who looked like Okisuke. "I'm just about broke!"

Inko wondered how anyone could be so cheerful about losing money. But then again, 500 rubles wasn't all that much. Boys tended to exaggerate about everything.

Inko stood up, brushing her knees. "Thank you for the lift," she said with a bow.

"Glad to be of help," said the soldier who looked like Calm. "Remember, don't wander off too far from the city. You never know when there might be an attack."

"Mmm, I know. I'm a soldier too."

"Oh, really?" The soldier laughed and scratched the back of his head. "That's an embarrassment. I was treating you like a civilian."

"Oh, no, it's fine." Inko shook her head. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Rayet staring at her coolly in her peripheral vision. Inexplicably, something clenched in her chest. "I don't act like a soldier, do I?"

"Don't sweat it. None of us are born soldiers," he said with a wave.

The jeep drove off again.

Meanwhile, the spring drizzle continued to fall, making a soft _pit pat _sound against the city walls. As they stood under the gateway, Inko could smell the familiar scent of the warm broth from the direction of the soup kitchen. Even in this weather, that homely smell managed to remain strong in the air.

Once the soldiers were out of sight, Rayet walked up to Inko with her hands in her pocket. How much money Rayet kept in those pockets Inko had no way of knowing.

"How did you get so good at cards?" Inko asked, sending Rayet a meaningful glance.

"By playing a lot," Rayet responded matter-of-factly. Then she said, in a quieter tone, "My father and his friends played every night. I just joined in."

"Every night?"

"Yeah."

Rayet's response did not leave much room for a conversation to take place, but Inko smiled anyway. They had never spoken at length back on the Deucalion. More and more, Inko wanted to learn about her new friend. "No wonder you're so good! You should teach me sometime!"

"Hmm."

As they spoke, the rain came to a stop, though a somewhat chilly wind continued to blow through the city.

"I wonder…" Rayet spoke up suddenly. "How _can _you be so cheerful?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

Inko did understand. Rayet had asked that same question not long before. It had evidently been on her mind for some time, perhaps even before she had encountered Inko.

Inko looked up and met Rayet's eyes. The other girl's eyes were hard and intense. It was almost overwhelming, in a way. Inko had never seen anything like it before.

"I'm not really that cheerful," she admitted, lowering her eyes.

She looked down at her hands. Her scarred fingers were covered by mittens now, but the image of what they had looked like several weeks ago was seared into her mind. Those twisted, blackened stubs surely did not belong to a human being.

"After that battle, I just couldn't handle it…" Even now, she could still see Inaho's dead face in her mind's eye. "One night, during winter, I went out alone into the cold. I thought maybe I could sleep better out there…"

And that night, she did sleep well. At first, the cold had seared her skin like a hot brand, but after a while, she stopped feeling the chill. She stopped feeling anything at all. Out there in the snow, it had been so, so peaceful - as if nothing in the world would ever touch her again.

"Someone rescued me, though. I woke up in the hospital. The next morning, I got a letter from my parents. They said that they missed me."

Rayet said nothing.

"That's why I'm glad," Inko went on. "I'm glad I managed to survive for one more day."

"I guess… that's one way of thinking about it."

As Rayet spoke, another cold wind blew past. Inko gritted her teeth, determined to bear it. She was glad that she could feel how cold and piercing the wind was to her very bones. The alternative was too frightening to think of.

Rayet winced as the wind slapped her face as well. "It's supposed to be spring," she muttered. "Why is it still so cold?"

Inko laughed. "You doofus. Just because it's not winter anymore doesn't mean you'll never feel the cold again," she said.

"I see." Rayet nodded. "That makes sense."

And she smiled.

The sight of it took Inko's breath away. Rayet really was so, so pretty when she smiled. Inko wished that she would smile forever.

Of course, the moment could not last forever. No moment could manage that. But it was okay. Inko was sure that if enough time passed, she would see Rayet smile again.

Inko breathed into her mittens and rubbed them together. "Want to stop by the soup kitchen?" she suggested brightly. "You'll feel warmer with food in your belly."

"It seems like you're the one who wants food in your belly."

Rayet was the taciturn type, but Inko was starting to think she wasn't all that unfriendly. She had a rather dry sense of humour.

And also, Rayet was right. Inko _was _hungry.

"Okay, let's go!" she declared, grabbing Rayet's hand. "You too, Eddelrittuo!"

"O-of course! Don't leave me behind!"

As Inko ran along, holding Rayet's hand as she went, the Martian girl looked up at the light grey heavens. Even though the air was still frigid, the sun had come out from behind the clouds, lighting up the street. Once more, the sparrows came out in the open, chirping in the sunshine.

"None of us are born soldiers, huh?" Rayet murmured quietly. "I guess that guy was right."


	14. III) Lemrina and Slaine

**13\. ****Lemrina and Slaine**

Princess Lemrina Vers Envers and Sir Slaine Saazbaum Troyard were married on the moon on the 18th of May. The royal ceremony was predictably lavish, although in some respects it was rather unusual. Because it took place in wartime, the attendance was barely half of what it should have been. Most who came were supporters of Count Saazbaum, who presided over the entire proceeding and gave most of the speeches. As the adopted father of the newly crowned prince, Count Saazbaum became the royal regent that day.

"This is the beginning of a new era," he announced.

Anyone who attended the ceremony would have left with no doubt of the truth behind the Count's words. A bastard princess marrying a Terran? Was this what the royal family had come to? With the Emperor ill in bed, the only person who emerged from this matchmaking with any real authority was the regent.

As Count Saazbaum spoke warmly of a new era of prosperity for the Orbital Knights of Mars, it was clear that he quite sincerely meant his words.

* * *

As for the young royal couple, they barely saw each other until the moment came for them to exchange vows.

Princess Lemrina spent several whole days being groomed and fitted with a white wedding dress. As a princess, she was used to this sort of treatment, but this time took a lot longer than usual. The maids bustled around her, fitting flowers into her hair and applying makeup on her face. The dress fitting had been particularly time-consuming, partly because of her inability to stand but also because the dress required multiple alterations to fit Lemrina's still growing body. Eventually, they moved to one of the low-gravity rooms for convenience's sake. Even then, though, the process was mostly tedious, and Lemrina was so unused to standing for long periods at a time that she had to ask for regular sitting breaks.

If that didn't make things difficult enough, Lemrina had her own ideas about what she wanted to wear. The bridesmaids had prepared an ornate golden necklace for her to wear with her white dress, but she refused it. She was adamant about wearing Asseylum's pendant and would give no explanation why. Thus, the dress itself had to be adjusted to suit the accessory.

At first, Lemrina could not see the point of all this fine tuning, but when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, her breath caught in her chest.

The dress was _hers. _It had been made to fit her and only her. The glimmering emerald beads had been removed from the front of the dress, replaced with aqua blue ones. Blue roses were stitched onto the lower half. The end result was something more sombre than the original design, as if the pure white dress contained a hint of a stormy sea. For a moment, Lemrina stared at herself in the dress, mesmerised.

She had never thought of herself as particularly attractive, but that youthful, blushing face definitely belonged to her. Perhaps it was right what they said, that a girl was at her most beautiful on her wedding day. She wondered if Slaine would fall for her if he saw her like this. She hoped he would.

Behind her, one of the maids giggled as she brushed Lemrina's hair. "I'm so jealous of you. Didn't I tell you that Sir Troyard is quite a catch?"

"Did you?" Lemrina asked vaguely. She could not remember.

Their conversation was interrupted when the door of the dressing room opened and Count Saazbaum walked in. "It will be time soon, princess."

Lemrina almost flinched at his voice. Knowing what she did now about him, it was a small wonder that she managed to meet his eyes without wavering. Yes, he had killed her sister, but he didn't know she knew that, did he?

"Indeed." All the girlish anticipation seeped out of her as she spoke. Whatever her feelings towards Slaine himself, she was under no illusions about what the marriage truly meant.

Silently, she floated over to her wheelchair and sat down on it, her back straight. Saazbaum placed his hands on the back of the chair. He would be the one pushing her all the way to altar.

For a while, he pushed her wordlessly down the corridor. The silence, however, did not last long.

"I asked you this before, but I might as well ask you again. Do you believe there is no such thing as love in an arranged marriage?"

Lemrina blinked, startled.

It was downright eerie how Saazbaum seemed to know things about her that she didn't know herself. He must have always known about her attraction to Slaine. Looking back, it must have been so obvious. She was just a sheltered little princess, after all.

"It's not really about _love_…" Lemrina began, and then she stopped. If it wasn't about love, what was it about?

Then it clicked.

"You're a very clever man, Count Saazbaum."

"Hm?"

"It suits you very fine if I love Slaine. After all, how can you be blamed for a choice I made myself?"

To her surprise, Saazbaum patted her on the shoulder.

"And you're a very clever girl, Princess Lemrina."

"Huh?"

She thought he would be angered by her accusation. Did that just mean he had so much power over her that it didn't matter to him what her opinions were?

"You did all you could to outwit me," Count Saazbaum explained. "Had you been a legitimate child, you might have obtained real influence. But still," he went on, "it's for the best that you failed. You would have been just like your father."

She craned her neck to peer at him. "My father…?"

"Yes," said the Count, and as he spoke, something cold and hard passed through his eyes. He was no longer smiling. "Pitting the knights against each other just to secure your own position… You did exactly what your father did."

Gilzeria, the Second Emperor of Vers, the man who sparked the First Earth-Mars War... the cause of Heaven's Fall…

"I see…" said Lemrina, looking down. She could not deny the truth of Saazbaum's words. "But unlike him, I saw Earth with my own two eyes."

Her fingers closed around Asseylum's pendant around her neck.

"Yes." Count Saazbaum nodded. "Now you're different."

Lemrina looked up and met his eyes. It was strange how she could despise a man and understand him so thoroughly at the same time. "You might have won this battle, but I won't let you win the war."

Count Saazbaum smiled once again. There was nothing condescending about the way he looked at her. "May you continue to be a worthy opponent."

After that, there was nothing more that needed to be said between them. They had arrived at an impasse. Beyond the doors ahead of them lay the unknown.

Just before he opened the doors, Count Saazbaum uttered one last thing to her.

"For your information, Princess Lemrina, I do believe in love in an arranged marriage."

* * *

The wheels of her chair ran smoothly over the velvet carpet.

Lemrina was struck by a curious sense of weightlessness. A sea of unrecognisable faces swam before her eyes. The lights of the chandelier almost blinded her; nothing she looked at seemed to come into proper focus.

Her hands trembled in her lap. Perhaps it was just as well that Count Saazbaum was taking her directly to the altar because she could not have wheeled herself through those doors. For a brief, terrible moment, she was the only person in the world.

Then she heard a soothing, gentle voice beside her. "Don't be afraid, princess. I'm here."

It was Slaine.

Oh, he was so _handsome. _His formal suit fitted him perfectly. But it wasn't his clothes that made him so handsome - his smile was utterly captivating.

It was all right. Everything would be all right. Deep down, she knew that nothing had really changed, but because she was no longer alone, she didn't even mind that Count Saazbaum had pushed her every step of the way. With Slaine by her side, she was no longer afraid.

Hesitantly, she met his eyes and smiled back at him.

When the time came for him to kiss her, he strode over to her and knelt before her, his hand clenched against his chest. "If I may."

"Yes," she responded breathlessly, forgetting that all of Vers was watching this moment.

Slaine opened his eyes. Was it just her or was he blushing as he looked at her? She could not take her eyes off him. Her heart thumped eagerly in anticipation at what would happen next.

Satisfied with her response, the knight stood up and placed his hands on her cheeks. His simplest touch sent a delightful shiver down her spine. "Please, close your eyes, Your Highness," he whispered as he drew his head close to hers. She could feel his warm breath on her lips.

Trembling, Lemrina obeyed.

Slaine's lips were soft and gentle. She would have relished his kiss, but within a moment, he drew his head back, satisfied that his duty was done. He stood back and bowed formally once again. She was unable to see his eyes.

She gulped; every nerve in her body tingled. If Slaine had decided to kiss her more passionately, she was sure she would have kissed him back. Already, mere moments after the formalities were done, she longed for him to kiss her again.

Instead of focusing his attention on his new wife, though, Slaine stood up and faced the audience of Martian aristocracy.

"In the name of Her Imperial Highness Lemrina Vers Envers, I hereby announce my resolve to fight for the greater prosperity of Mars."

Although he spoke smoothly, there was something hard about his tone. It was the complete opposite of his tenderness earlier.

"What matters is not blood or lineage, but the strength to fight for what is right. Lords of the Vers Orbital Knights, do you not agree with me?"

Slaine held himself with dignity; he spoke with magnetic charisma. For that single, spellbinding minute, his speech commanded the attention of every single person in the room.

Slaine Troyard was a Terran, but the crowd of Orbital Knights applauded him, because if there was one thing Versian society valued above all else, it was merit. Slaine cast his eyes around the room and saw grudging approval in the eyes of his superiors.

He waited until the applause had died down until he uttered his next words. To anyone listening, they seemed so beautifully clear and purposeful. Perhaps it was because of the way he spoke. But only much later would Lemrina understand what he truly meant by those words that day.

"Make no mistake. I will ensure that justice is done."

* * *

If Lemrina thought she would have the opportunity to talk with Slaine privately after the wedding ceremony, she was mistaken. Somewhat frustratingly, he spent the evening socialising with the other counts. He was particularly absorbed in conversation with a blond-haired count named Klancain, the young son of the late Count Cruhteo.

Lemrina was tempted to join in their conversation, although there was nothing she really wanted to say to Klancain in particular. He seemed nice but a bit boring.

Instead, she contented herself with eying her husband out of the corner of her eyes as she sipped on a non-alcoholic cocktail. Of course, being the princess, there was no way she could remain alone and unattended for very long.

"Congratulations on your marriage, Princess Lemrina."

Count Barouhcruz stood beside her, a glass of red wine in his hand. He smiled at her cordially.

"Thank you, Count Barouhcruz," she said, returning the smile. "It is an honour to hear those words from you."

She had not spoken with Barouhcruz since she had been to Earth, but she still remembered how she had offered him her personal favour. Perhaps he had approached her with that on his mind.

"There's someone I'd like to introduce to you," he said with a bow. "Are you acquainted with Count Mazuurek?"

Lemrina noticed a young man standing behind Barouhcruz. As soon as he noticed Lemrina looking at him, he bowed hastily, his curly brown hair bobbing from the sharp movement.

"I'm honoured to meet you, Your Highness!"

There was something earnest and dogged about the young Count Mazuurek. Lemrina could not help but smile a little more genuinely at his display.

"Rise, Count Mazuurek. What is it that you need?"

"There's nothing I need from you, Your Highness. I merely wish to express my support for you," he said, looking up.

"Oh?"

"All my life, I have sworn fealty to the royal family," Count Mazuurek explained. "Regardless of who your mother was, you are still the one true heir of Vers. Nothing will change that."

"Not even marriage to a Terran?"

Not a single flicker of hesitation came over his expression. "That's right."

_How interesting_, Lemrina thought absently.

Barouhcruz cut in. "If I may be frank, I dislike how Count Saazbaum has used this opportunity to expand his own influence. We Orbital Knights are supposed to serve the royal family, not the other way around."

Was Barouhcruz a loyalist or just someone out to protect his own turf? Lemrina had never quite figured it out. Normally, not knowing the definitive answer would have bothered Lemrina to no end, but today, she could not muster the mental energy to care. She could only smile at the two gentlemen and thank them for their devotion.

All she could think about, stupidly, was kissing Slaine.

Eventually, the men must have noticed that she was distracted, probably because she kept glancing at Slaine every couple of seconds - his mouth in particular. After about ten minutes, the men bid her a good night. Barouhcruz smiled secretively and apologised for keeping her from her husband, especially now that the hour had grown late. Realising what the older man must be thinking of, Lemrina blushed.

She wondered what others must think of her. She had no way of knowing if her actions were normal or depraved. Lemrina, who had always prided herself on her intelligence, could barely recognise herself. The dizzying aftereffects of marrying Slaine appeared to have sent her thoughts helter skelter. She did not know how much longer she could take it.

Mercifully, Slaine did not keep her waiting around for much longer. He came to her just before the clock struck midnight.

"You must be terribly tired, Your Highness. Shall we retire for the night?"

She nodded mutely, for suddenly the back of her throat was dry. She had spent so much of the evening inwardly longing for Slaine's company, but now that he was in front of her, she was at a total loss about what to do.

Finally, she managed to find her voice. "You don't have to call me Your Highness anymore. I… I'm your wife now."

_His wife. _The word felt unnatural on her tongue. Slaine must have thought similarly because he smiled sheepishly as soon as she uttered it.

"That may be the case, but you are still the princess. Your rank is far above mine."

"What about when we're alone?" Lemrina was not about to give up so soon.

They were alone right now. The corridors leading to their bedchamber was quite empty. Nothing was more painfully obvious to Lemrina at that moment. It was the first time in almost a week since they had last been alone together, and it felt like an eternity and a half.

"Well…" His hands clenched tighter around the back of her wheelchair. "If that is what you want… Lemrina."

Lemrina's heart leapt in her chest. First, he had kissed her and now he called her by her name. As they drew nearer to their chamber, Lemrina was conscious of an unspoken _something _between them, as if they had agreed to something without quite knowing what it was. Whatever it turned out to be, Lemrina was not afraid. Her hands shook and her voice trembled, but she was not afraid. Not of him.

"We're here," Slaine announced quietly. He sounded almost as nervous as she felt. The automatic doors opened and he wheeled her inside, his steps slow and faltering.

The first thing Lemrina saw was the queen-sized double bed in the middle of the room. It was covered with a tall canopy made of velvet silk. No one walking into the room would be able to see what went on behind the veils. There lay a miniature world cut off from space and time.

She watched Slaine walk over to the bed and gently prise the veil apart, revealing a bed covered with pure white sheets and feathery pillows. He looked over his shoulder and met eyes with Lemrina.

"It looks very… comfortable," he said lamely.

"Aren't you a keen observer of the obvious?"

"Haha…"

"Well, don't just stand there," said Lemrina. Her voice sounded much more high-pitched than usual for some reason. "Do something."

"Like what?"

"This dress is uncomfortable to sleep in." Which was literally true - wedding dresses were not designed for comfort.

Slaine looked around almost helplessly. Unfortunately for him, there were no maids hidden under the bed. They were completely and utterly alone.

"How do I take it off?" he asked finally, not meeting her eyes.

"There's a zipper on the back," she explained.

His fingers ran over the thin fabric of her dress as he attempted to find the zipper. She could feel his touch almost as keenly as if he were stroking her naked skin.

"Like this?" he asked as he found the zipper and carefully peeled away the dress's fabric, revealing Lemrina's slim and bare shoulders.

"Yes."

Slowly, he removed the rest of her dress. She noticed that his hands were trembling. As for Lemrina, her skin prickled with goosebumps. The more her body was bared, the more she could not help but shiver.

Slaine stopped moving when the dress came off entirely, sliding to the floor in a heap. Lemrina was wearing only her undergarments underneath. Instinctively, she covered her chest with her bare arms, even though it was a rather ineffectual gesture. But what was she to do? No man had ever seen her in this state of undress.

"Slaine… I…"

She closed her eyes, unable to finish the sentence. How could she when she did not even know what she wanted to say?

"You must be cold," he murmured. With infinite gentleness, he placed her on the bed, where he covered her with a blanket. Even under the covers, her skin came alive with goosebumps. It was not the cold that made her shiver so much.

As for Slaine, he turned away from her and started to take off his coat. Lemrina watched him, unable to take her eyes off his body. Some part of her knew that it was rude to stare so openly, but the curiosity was too overpowering. It was her first time seeing him anything less than fully clothed.

When he had stripped down to his undershirt, she let out an inadvertent gasp. Slaine swung around swiftly, his eyes flashing with concern. "Is something the matter?"

"Those… scars…"

"Ah," he said, and something unreadable came over his eyes.

Even though his shirt covered most of his back, she could see the jagged white lash scars tracing his upper back. Somehow, the mere hint of those scars was terribly suggestive. She could only imagine how the rest of his body must look.

"Is this what Vers has done to you?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I'll cover myself up," Slaine said quickly.

"No, don't."

He looked at her in mute puzzlement. Lemrina continued to shake her head fervently, not knowing what she was saying until the words were out of her mouth.

"Take off your shirt. I want to see all of you."

As soon as she uttered those words, she gasped again. Never had she so desperately wanted to spontaneously self-combust. She was sure her face must be bright red.

Slaine was blushing too, though mercifully he voiced no objections. He pinched the sides of his shirt and pulled it off hesitantly.

The scars were nightmarishly hideous, as she expected. Each thin white scar crisscrossed with all the others, so that his entire upper body became a tapestry of untold personal histories. It was impossible for Lemrina to tell where one scar ended and another began.

She did not know how long she stared, mesmerised by his body - for Slaine was beautiful even with those scars. There was not an inch of spare fat on his wiry frame. She could perceive the strength his body possessed, even without touching his chest and feeling its firmness for herself.

Seeing him like this, something in her heart ached.

"What can I do?" she whispered aloud. "What can I do to make you happy?"

"Princess, my happiness is not your concern…"

_Princess! _She scowled.

Even though they were close now, closer than they had ever been, she knew with painful lucidity that he had closed his heart from her. He was ever the formal knight.

"No, no, no." She shook her head. "I _want _you to be happy. You shouldn't force yourself for my sake…"

He smiled. "I'm glad you think that way."

His smile wasn't quite genuine, but it wasn't fake either. There was something tentative and uncertain about him, as if he did not know what would make him happy either. Lemrina was not sure what to make of his expression, but somehow, she was relieved. He was as naked and vulnerable as she was, and she accepted him. She accepted all of him.

"I'm glad I chose you," she whispered.

"Thank you," he said, moving closer to her.

She waited.

She waited for him to reach out for her, to bridge the gap between them, to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her, to love her.

In the end, Slaine did none of these things.

There was a soft thump as Slaine climbed onto the bed and came to rest a respectable distance from her, just close enough to reach out and touch her face with his fingertips. Their eyes met, and Lemrina knew beyond a shadow of doubt that this was the most intimate that they would ever be.

"Good night, princess," he said softly.

"Lemrina. You said you'd call me by my name."

He laughed sheepishly. "Good night then, Lemrina."

"Good night, Slaine."

He turned off the lights.


	15. III) Captain Magbaredge

**14\. Captain Magbaredge**

It had been a hard-won battle, but by May the United Forces of Earth had reclaimed the Jiangsu province from the Martians. For months after landing in Beijing, the Martians had been heading south along the Yangtze River, decimating any living thing in their path. At first, they had been unstoppable, but time and geography gradually chipped away at their military potential. And now, several months after the battle of Novosibirsk, the UFE celebrated its second pyrrhic victory.

What happened was this: after many kilometers of travel, the Martian forces spread themselves too thin. Despite their overwhelming technological advantage, they fell against sheer numbers. Soldiers and civilians alike swarmed the river basin, cutting off the Martian troops from their central command.

It was an inelegant strategy, but it worked. The Martians were forced back up the river to regroup for another day, leaving a sea of unidentifiable corpses in their wake.

Not for the first time in Nanjing's history, the river ran red that day.

* * *

On the same day, Slaine Troyard and Princess Lemrina got married on the moon. This event was screened around the world via pirate broadcasts. Until that moment, the young couple was virtually unknown to everyone on Earth, but now, they were apparently the two most important people in Vers. Their wedding ceremony was like something out of a medieval fairytale, especially when it came to the lavish decorations and overblown speeches.

As the UFE soldiers in Nanjing nursed their wounds and counted their dead, they watched the wedding ceremony with a mixture of bafflement, anger, and, eventually, dark humour.

"It's amazing how these Martians have so much time to sit on their asses while they're waging a war."

"War - what is it good for? Hooking up with a cute princess, apparently."

"Yeah, she's a looker. I wouldn't mind being in that guy's shoes."

"I wonder what it's like to fuck a disabled girl."

"That's enough," said Captain Magbaredge tersely, who was thoroughly disgusted at where the conversation had gone. But instead of sitting up to attention, the soldiers merely shrugged listlessly and lapsed into silence.

113 people had died in the battle today. 72 of them had been civilians.

As for how many people had died in the war so far? Nobody had collected the statistics.

* * *

In the days following Count Saazbaum's attack on the UFE headquarters, the overall military strategy changed. Instead of attempting to fight the Martians everywhere on the globe, trained soldiers were deployed only in strategic areas. For everywhere else, the unspoken message was _fend for yourselves._

Nanjing was one of these strategic areas. Its position on the Yangtze River and proximity to Japan had rendered it a bulwark against further Martian expansion. Although Martian forces were pressing down from the north, the south was still relatively untouched except for air raids. Though the Landing Castles were nigh indestructible, the Martians could not venture far from them without risking their safety. By cutting off their access to water, the UFE could contain the Martians within certain areas and fight a war of attrition. Nanjing was vital to this strategy.

From a macro perspective, the containment strategy was working quite well, but as the bloody campaign continued, Captain Magbaredge ceased being able to tell success from failure. Only the evenings she spent with her XO Mizusaki Kaoru became a source of comfort. In her usual brisk, almost cheerful fashion (well, as cheerful as one could be in a war zone), Mizusaki would describe the current strategic situation with the aid of maps and graphs. Her inevitable conclusion was that the Martians were continuing to slow their rate of expansion. On an intellectual level, this did make sense because the Martians no longer possessed the element of surprise.

"The princess's wedding might actually have something to do with this as well," said Mizusaki. "It's distracted them from the invasion."

This was usually the point where Captain Magbaredge would tease Mizusaki about her complete ignorance on love-related matters, but she was too preoccupied for that today.

"What on _earth _are they planning…?"

There were a million problems with the Martians, but undoubtedly the most infuriating thing about them was how thoroughly inscrutable they were. There had once been a time back when the Hyper Gate still existed when Earth and Vers had possessed something resembling diplomatic relations, but Captain Magbaredge was too young to remember any of that in detail. Besides, only rich people and politicians had ever used the Hyper Gate. To the mind of the average Terran, Vers had always been a fuzzy red planet that existed within the limitless bounds of a child's imagination, patched together with speculative sci-fi and the half-truths of the media.

These days, Captain Magbaredge knew even less about the inner workings of Vers, despite having dedicated over half her life preparing for the war she fought today. She'd had no idea that Princess Asseylum had a sister, for instance. And yet everyone at the wedding seemed to act as if Princess Lemrina had been around all along. It was all very peculiar.

Then there was the matter of the groom, who was, apparently, a Terran. What was that supposed to mean? Was Versian society becoming more accepting of Terrans, despite waging a war against Earth?

"It's certainly interesting," said Mizusaki. "That guy wouldn't be the first Terran to join the Martian side."

"What do you mean?"

"Mishima Takeo. He was recently convicted of high treason by the Supreme Court. Apparently, he leaked military secrets to the Martians."

"Good grief…"

Captain Magbaredge was starting to get a headache.

Perhaps it ought not to be such a surprise. Such a thing was not without precedence. Captain Magbaredge had heard stories about Westerners joining the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Martians and Terrans looked the same, only their ideologies were different. Perhaps the traitors were assured that the Martians would eventually win, or maybe they were attracted to the idea of conquering nations.

To be fair, Captain Magbaredge had seen for herself that not all Martians were equally sympathetic to the imperialist cause.

Mizusaki seemed to notice her captain's consternation because she said, "At least the containment strategy is working for now."

"Well, yes, but…" Captain Magbaredge frowned. Then she shook her head. There was no point dwelling on hypotheticals when there was a more pressing situation to be concerned about. "What's the enemy position right now?"

"Their forces appear to be concentrated in the northern part of the Anhui province. They only number a few hundred by our estimate."

When she put it that way, the situation didn't sound so bad. Numbers, however, were deceptive. Those hundreds had already killed thousands and displaced tens of thousands. Every day, hundreds of refugees from the occupied provinces attempted to cross the river into the lands defended by the UFE. On top of that, many young Chinese wanted to join the UFE in order to fight back against the enemy, equipped with only their mandatory military training in high school.

All of this took its toll on the cohesiveness of UFE operations. The UFE might have numbers on their side, but at times like these, a smaller, more mobile unit would probably be more effective at launching complex strategies. All the UFE could really do in this region was defend its own position.

It would also help to have Aldnoah technology on the UFE side. It would help a lot. Speaking of which, Warrant Officer Kaizuka had gone to Okinawa to investigate the Aldnoah drive. Captain Magbaredge wondered how she was doing.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door of the strategy room opened and Lieutenant Marito walked in with a wine bottle in his hand.

"Who gave _you _permission to come in here?" Captain Magbaredge demanded sharply.

And what was with the wine bottle? The lieutenant was supposed to have given up drinking.

"Who gave me orders not to be here? I am a lieutenant, you know."

"A fine excuse of one, that's for sure." Captain Magbaredge sighed. _Oh, whatever. _"So what brings you here?"

"There's been a situation."

_A situation. _That word never meant anything good. And it didn't mean anything good in this situation either, as Captain Magbaredge soon found out.

The door opened again, this time for three more people. Two of them were Chinese guards in UFE uniforms, both probably in their thirties. One of them had probably been born in one of the southern provinces, judging by his tanned skin. The other guard Captain Magbaredge recognised by name - Sergeant Chen. He had transferred to Nanjing from the Beijing base after the UFE lost their position there, and thus had seen the horrors of the Martian invasion for himself. He had small eyes and a hard mouth, which was currently curled in disdain.

Standing between the two guards was a young blonde man in handcuffs.

"This man is an undercover Martian agent," Sergeant Chen announced curtly.

"I'm not a Martian! How many times do I have to tell you that?!" the young man cried. He looked up sharply, revealing the bluest pair of eyes Captain Magbaredge had ever seen.

"What's going on here?" Captain Magbaredge asked, sending Marito a glance.

"That guy came with the refugees from Anhui. Said he's a journalist working for a British newspaper."

"He was also carrying grenades on his person!" Sergeant Chen snarled.

"Grenades?" Captain Magbaredge repeated inquisitively, which prompted another furious outburst from the young blonde man.

"They're UFE grenades. And of course I'd carry weapons in a war zone! Everyone else was carrying weapons too! Just search them."

Presumably, he was talking about the other refugees who had come over the river. In that case, yes - it was common knowledge that the refugees took whatever they could carry, including weapons usually pilfered from dead soldiers. The vast majority of the refugees, however, were ethnic Chinese.

And therein lay the problem.

While Martians were physically indistinguishable from other humans, most of them were descended from fair-skinned Westerners like herself. In fact, she could not recall ever seeing an "Asian" Martian.

Captain Magbaredge, who had always been taught to reject the Martian claim of racial difference, was startled by the realisation that other Terrans would think quite differently depending on where they lived.

Marito sighed and shrugged. "They wanted to go ahead and lock him up as soon as they found him, but I convinced them to come to you first."

Although Marito swished his wine bottle in his hand as he spoke, what he actually said was sensible. There was no way Captain Magbaredge would condone locking someone up without at least hearing their story.

"Do you have any proof this man is a Martian?" Captain Magbaredge asked the two Chinese guards. Even in the best case scenario, it was just one man's word against the other, after all.

"The circumstantial evidence is all we need," said Sergeant Chen. The other guard nodded, looking at the prisoner with distinct unease, as if the blonde man was a bomb waiting to go off.

All of a sudden, Captain Magbaredge remembered something from Sergeant Chen's biographical record. He had been a policeman before the war broke out and a staunch supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. And if what Captain Magbaredge had heard about the Communist Party was true, circumstantial evidence was really all they needed for a conviction.

She coughed. "As far as you know, he hasn't attacked anybody, has he?"

"No," Sergeant Chen admitted. "But we can't let him mingle with us just in case. He might be in contact with the enemy."

_Us, he says. _

Surely the sergeant could see with his own eyes that Captain Magbaredge was as fair-skinned as the so-called Martian. But, of course, she didn't count as an enemy because she wore the UFE uniform. But what if she said or did something that could be interpreted as pro-Martian?

Captain Magbaredge did not want to consider the thought.

Instead, she turned to the captive. "What's your name, young man?"

"Mark Thomas. Like I said, I'm a correspondent from _The Guardian_. If you can just get me in contact with the British embassy…"

"That can't be done. There are no British embassies here," Captain Magbaredge said bluntly. Then she asked, "Do you have a passport? Any form of ID?"

"No. I lost it during the attack."

"I see." He had really made things difficult for them. "The most important thing to do is verify your identity. You'll need to see the British Consulate General in Shanghai."

"Shanghai?! Can't you do it here?" The poor man was stunned.

"No. We don't have the proper authority to carry out an identity check here."

It was an unfortunate fact of the UFE bureaucracy. Only the central hubs had access to the important documents, including extensive records of everyone who had ever been involved with the UFE. Since _The Guardian _was a UFE-approved media outlet, it would be possible to track down Mark Thomas, confirm his story and issue him a new passport - provided he was who he said he was.

Even if this case was handled by the UFE's impartial body, it was still entirely unfair, she knew. Nobody else was being hounded like this for their ID. At best, this young man would live under surveillance for months, for the UFE's bureaucracy was notoriously slow. There was also no guarantee the young man would ever be approved by the agency at all. But this was a far better alternative than handing him over to the Chinese justice system, which Captain Magbaredge had no firsthand knowledge of at all.

With a sigh, the captain turned to the two Chinese guards. "Do you understand? Let Britain take care of this matter. Put him on a fast train to Shanghai."

"Yes, Captain," said Sergeant Chen, a little bit sullenly.

In the end, no one seemed entirely happy with this arrangement, but it would have to do. The two guards left with Mark Thomas in tow. That left only Marito, Mizusaki and Captain Magbaredge in the room. For a brief moment, silence reigned.

"Captain, you did very well with such a delicate situation," said Mizusaki finally.

Captain Magbaredge smiled tiredly.

"Really?" Marito broke in. "I bet that guy will never reach the British Consulate General. He'll be lynched way before then."

Captain Magbaredge frowned.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"If they're convinced he's a Martian, they'll do anything they can to stop him. The truth is, they don't really trust us."

Captain Magbaredge remembered the look of apprehensiveness in the Chinese guard's eyes as he regarded the young journalist. While Sergeant Chen had been more forthright expressing his distrust, it was the other guard's silent fear of the unknown which Captain Magbaredge remembered most vividly after the fact.

The only people you could trust was your own kind - that was surely how the two Chinese guards saw it. And they were probably not alone in thinking that way. In this world, anyone could be a Martian or a potential Martian informer. A Terran had even married the Martian princess today, for goodness's sake. That was probably the most frightening thing.

"I can't disagree," Captain Magbaredge admitted heavily.

"So what should we do?" asked Mizusaki. "We can't leave him in danger."

"There's only one thing I can do," Captain Magbaredge said.

Beckoning to Mizusaki and Marito, she walked outside the room and strode towards the railway station. It was located at the edge of the military base, surrounded by barbed-wire fences and a foggy night sky. After being deployed in this country, Captain Magbaredge had come to realise that China was a land of many walls.

Fortunately, the train had not left the platform yet when Captain Magbaredge arrived. The young journalist was currently still in handcuffs, and the guards were quite literally in the process of shoving him into an open carriage.

"Stand down, men," Captain Magbaredge announced. "I'll accompany the young man personally."

Perhaps it was simply the chilliness of the cold night air, but as she spoke, the hairs on her skin stood on end.

Sergeant Chen swung around at the sound of her voice. For a moment, he simply looked at her and at her two Japanese colleagues behind her, and then he frowned.

"Yes, Captain."

His acquiescence held a note of dissatisfaction, which somehow managed to linger for an unnaturally long time in the still, breezeless air.

There was nothing Captain Magbaredge could say to address what lay between them. It was something much larger than they were. Something older.

At the same time, she felt as if she _had_ to say something. "Innocent until proven guilty. That is the principle I stand by."

"You Westerners have such a self-serving sense of justice."

At first, Captain Magbaredge had no idea what the Chinese man was even trying to say. But then she remembered where she was. It was impossible to forget it for long. This was Nanjing on the day, eve and memorial of a slaughter.

113 people had died in the battle today. 72 of them had been civilians.

"You would abandon your post for the sake of one man when all of China cries for vengeance for her fallen sons and daughters," Sergeant Chen said slowly.

"Look," said Marito, angrily. "We want to stop the Martians as much as you do. We know they've killed many people. But that doesn't give you any right to lock up innoce-"

"How like a Japanese to say that," Sergeant Chen interrupted him. "There are some atrocities which can never be forgiven. You must carry on repenting until the end of your days."

As he spoke, he looked directly at Marito and Mizusaki. Though Mizusaki kept a neutral expression, Marito looked away, as if he understood all too well what the other man was talking about.

Sergeant Chen continued to gaze at them coldly for another moment or two, but then he seemed to remember that he was outranked and stepped aside for them with a curt salute. However, he uttered no apology.

* * *

At least Mark Thomas seemed grateful about Captain Magbaredge's gesture. "Thank you," he said when Marito took off his handcuffs. He rubbed his wrists and winced somewhat as he smiled.

The carriage was small and poky, despite the size and speed of the train. The train was built for carrying fuel and food supplies between Shanghai and Nanjing, so most of the carriages were not equipped for accommodating human passengers. The tiny crew cab was equipped with a microwave and refrigerator, but that was about it when it came to human comforts.

The train got moving almost as soon as they boarded. If Captain Magbaredge had harboured second thoughts about her decision, it was too late to act on them now. The train operators had a tight schedule to keep.

Mark Thomas looked out the window at a dark sky still foggy and impenetrable to human eyes. He pressed his hand against the glass, as if he longed to reach out and touch the sky with his thin, pale fingers.

"To be honest," he said quietly, "I don't think the UFE will let me off easy."

"What do you mean?" asked Mizusaki, puzzled.

"_The Guardian _fired me a few months ago, you see."

"…what?"

The journalist looked over his shoulder and smiled wryly. "The UFE controls the media. There are some stories that are simply unpublishable."

Captain Magbaredge was starting to get the impression that the reason the journalist had been apprehended was something deeper than his skin colour. "Did you write something in support of the Martians?"

"I never said that. I didn't know that being critical of the UFE suddenly means you support the Martians."

Captain Magbaredge shifted uncomfortably. She had been adopted into a proud military family with UFE connections, and so had spent many of her formative years believing that a united Earth federation was the ideal that all of humanity should strive for.

"You heard about that scandal in 1991 where the UFE took bribes from arms manufacturers? Well, that's not the only shifty thing the UFE gets up to."

"You don't have to say it twice," said Marito. He was evidently thinking of the Tanegashima Report he wrote, which was hushed up by the military in order to hide the existence of the Deucalion.

Captain Magbaredge closed her eyes and thought back to the moment of that discovery. At the time, they had been caught up in a battle with the Martians, so no one had thought deeply about the implications of a UFE-designed flying warship powered by an Aldnoah drive. The Deucalion had evidently been reverse engineered from existing Martian technology because it functioned perfectly without the need for a single test flight. The only thing it had lacked was the Aldnoah activation factor.

Just what did that mean…?

"The UFE might be a global organisation, but it only reflects the interests of the powerful corporate elites," Mark Thomas went on. "You've seen the way they've abandoned the countries not part of their 'containment strategy'. I even heard a rumour that Washington authorised a nuclear attack on Japan."

"Are you talking about the Mishima Takeo case?" asked Mizusaki. "He was a delusional nationalist who believed in a conspiracy between the U.S. and the Martians. He was clearly making up that whole story about nuking Japan."

"That sounds awfully convenient to me," the journalist retorted. "Just how could an _ensign_ leak important military secrets to the Martians, anyway? There's got to be more to the story than the official account."

"Putting that all aside," said Captain Magbaredge, "you believe that the UFE will accuse you of treason as well?"

"I don't know. Probably." His mouth twitched. "I just hope they'll be better than the Communist police."

Captain Magbaredge understood now why Mark Thomas had not wanted to be transported to Shanghai, the city where Mishima Takeo had been tried and sentenced to life in prison.

Suddenly, she felt very tired.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed Lieutenant Marito scavenging the fridge for a beer. Just as he opened the can, she snatched it from him.

"Right… No alcohol…" he muttered.

But instead of putting the beer away, Captain Magbaredge brought the can to her lips and drank half the contents in one swallow. Lieutenant Marito blinked and stared.

"I can see why you like this stuff," said Captain Magbaredge simply, as an impenetrable haziness fell over her mind. Mizusaki looked away.

Meanwhile, the journalist-turned-traitor Mark Thomas went back to staring out the window at the inky black sky. His breath fogged the window and he traced his finger idly against the glass, leaving an ephemeral trace of himself on the world as he waited to receive his justice.

**END PART THREE**

**Author's note: **Aaaand another part comes to an end! This part was less eventful, but hopefully still interesting.

You know, what interests me the most about _Aldnoah Zero _is the setting. If you haven't seen it already, you should probably check out the timeline released before the anime came out. The interesting thing about the timeline is that it implies that the Earth side was pretty dick-ish too, although you wouldn't really know it from watching the anime.

Like Part Two of this story, this chapter drew heavily from East Asia's experience of World War II. In particular, it contains allusions to the Rape of Nanking, which continues to be an extremely controversial issue in East Asian politics.

(On the subject of "Asian" Martians, Harklight looks rather Asian to me. He's also a third-class citizen in Martian society. Coincidence?)

We're actually over halfway done with the story. There will be five parts to this story altogether. Part Four will bring this story to its emotional climax, so look forward to it!


	16. IV) Honeymoon

**PART FOUR: ASSEYLUM**

**15\. Honeymoon**

Lemrina put her plan into motion the next day.

Perhaps calling it a "plan" was going too far. It was really more of an impromptu scheme that had sprung fully-formed in her mind when she woke up the next morning and realised that she and Slaine were not about to have a honeymoon. When the dreamlike haze of yesterday night crumbled through exposure to reality, Princess Lemrina shook with thinly concealed rage.

"What do you mean you're going back into battle today?"

"Er, well, you see, the enemy has been establishing a space base," said Slaine, scratching the back of his head. "You don't need to worry, Lemrina. I'll pro-"

"I am very displeased," Lemrina announced in no uncertain terms, sitting up in the bed and flinging the sheets away in a huff.

Slaine coughed and looked away politely, but Lemrina did not care that she was currently dressed only in her underwear. Ironically, if something had actually happened between them last night, she might have been more concerned about her lack of modesty, but at the moment, the idea that Slaine might touch her inappropriately never crossed her mind.

That morning, Slaine woke her up, gently shaking her by the shoulders as if her entire body was made of glass. Evidently an early riser, he was already dressed in his knight's uniform by the time Lemrina opened her eyelids groggily. It was as if those terrible scars on his body had never existed at all.

In fact, everything about last night felt like something that had happened on another satellite. When Slaine turned the bedroom lights on at full strength, the entire room seemed somehow plain and ordinary. For all its extravagant bedding, even the queen-sized bed just looked pointlessly large rather than romantic. Lemrina could lie on it sideways and stretch out her arms but still not touch the edge of the bed. It was easy to see how the two of them had spent the entire night in the same bed without ever touching at all.

Now she peered at Slaine, fully dressed and ready for war, and found herself wondering if they had actually gotten married at all. Maybe that whole wedding ceremony was just a very, very detailed dream.

"I'm sorry," said Slaine, and he really did look rather sheepish. "I would have told you yesterday, but I didn't know how to bring it up."

"What's the rush?" Lemrina demanded. "Why do you have to go _today_?"

"The other knights are returning to their castles today. I have to set an example for them," said Slaine, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh, this is just _splendid_!" Lemrina scowled. She knew that Slaine was trying to get the other knights to accept him, but that all meant nothing if he got killed.

Besides, they had married literally less than twenty four hours ago. Surely no one would grudge him for wanting to spend more time with his newlywed wife.

…unless, of course, he didn't _actually _want to spend time with her.

"Do you hate me or something?"

"What? No! Of course not! It's just…" He took a deep breath. "There are things I have to do."

He seemed to be afraid of something. Just as Lemrina opened her mouth to ask him just what he was afraid of, he went on speaking, as if he was hoping he could assure her.

"Listen, Lemrina. It won't be a long campaign. I will be back soon, I swear."

"Did Count Saazbaum say something to you?"

He blinked and avoided her eyes. "Well, um, not really…"

"You should tell me what he said to you. We can work something out together." Lemrina had wanted to discuss what to do about Count Saazbaum. She had a few ideas and wanted to know what Slaine thought of them.

"There's no need to worry. I'll take care of him."

_Take care of him…?_

Before Lemrina could ask what he meant by that, Slaine said, "Anyway, I have a meeting with the other knights now. Please take care of yourself, Lemrina."

And with that, he skirted out of the bedroom, leaving Lemrina half-naked in the bed with an open scowl on her face.

_Least romantic husband ever,_ was her first thought.

_He's clearly hiding something_, was her second.

Maybe he was being extra distant because of last night. At that time, they had almost become close, she was sure. But now, it was as if the moment had slipped away from them. Whatever it was that was ailing him, he was determined to face it alone.

No, she was not satisfied just leaving things here. Fighting was not the solution. She knew that now better than anyone.

So Lemrina called in a maid, got dressed and ate breakfast, all the while plotting furiously. Once she was fed and watered and fitted with a nice dress, she decided to put her plan into action.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do, Your Highness?" asked Harklight as he pushed her wheelchair towards the hangar.

"Of course. Are you questioning my orders, Harklight?"

"Not at all, Your Highness. It's just that Milord Slaine said you should stay in your room…"

All for her protection, no doubt. Lemrina sighed.

"I want to go to the hangar so I can walk on my own two feet."

"Milord Slaine hasn't been mistreating you, has he?" Harklight asked with concern.

Lemrina shook her head. "No. He's been a perfect gentleman. That's the problem."

"Huh." Harklight sounded mystified.

Lemrina did not bother enlightening him. Her private life was really of no concern to him. Besides, they had just reached the hangar. Lemrina jumped out of her wheelchair and experimented walking around for a short while. It had been a long time since she had last moved about freely, and just like every time she walked on her own two feet, she found herself thinking that this must be what happiness was like.

Once she had finished flexing her limbs and nursing her stiff joints, she systematically turned off the Aldnoah drive of every single Kataphrakt in the hangar.

"What are you doing?!" Harklight cried.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Lemrina asked back. "This is the only way to get those wretched knights to listen to me."

This whole process took some time because there were about twenty Kataphrakts in the hangar, give or take. Each Kataphrakt was designed differently, and it took a moment or two to work out where the entry hatch was located. It only took mere seconds to turn off the Aldnoah drive itself, though. All she had to do was get inside the pilot seat and say, "I command you in the name of Lemrina Vers Envers. Aldnoah, sleep." Unlike humans, Aldnoah drives always responded to Lemrina's command.

As she got to work, she wondered how long it would take for the knights to notice that their war toys didn't work anymore. At first, fear ran through her at the thought of what they would do, but she reminded herself that no one would hurt her because of this. She was the only one besides the Emperor who possessed the activation factor - and he was currently sick in bed in Mars. The knights could not afford to hurt her.

When she reached the Tharsis, she hesitated a moment, knowing that Slaine would not be happy with her. But in the end, she turned off his Aldnoah drive too.

Satisfied with her handiwork, she got Harklight to take her back to her room. "I'll be expecting visitors soon," she told him smoothly, and Harklight merely looked at her dumbly. He knew that there was nothing he could say to dissuade her from the course of action she had taken. Perhaps he said nothing because he _wanted _to see what would happen next.

Lemrina had a plan.

Just as she expected, Slaine came knocking on her door about an hour later. He had come to sweet talk her.

"Lemrina," he said her name gently. She could tell he was actually furious, but he kept his voice calm and held her hand as he spoke. "What is it that you want? Have I failed you somehow? There was no need for you to go so far."

He did not mention it, but she could guess how the knights had reacted. Upon realising that they could not activate their machines, they probably told Slaine to persuade her to change her mind. Pathetic, really.

Only, it sort of worked. Lemrina found herself lost in Slaine's eyes like the lovesick little girl that she was. And she knew that _he _knew. That somehow made it worse.

She knew that Slaine was expecting her to say something, so she opened her mouth and uttered the first thing on her mind.

"You know, you'll be able to activate the Tharsis again if you kiss me. That's guaranteed."

"You want me to kiss you?" He was not blushing this time. He spoke with dead seriousness.

"Oh yes," said Lemrina, remembering how sweetly he had kissed her at their wedding.

A strained sort of look came over his face, an odd mixture of guilt and compassion. Yet in a moment, the look was gone, replaced by steely determination. "All right," he said, leaning forward to kiss her.

Their lips were just about to meet when Lemrina whipped her hand over his mouth and pushed his head back.

"I was joking. I only want to kiss if you want to do it too."

"Oh."

And perhaps it said something about his honesty that he did not claim that he wanted to kiss her, just to win her favour.

This whole conversation was starting to make Lemrina sick in the mouth, so she turned her back to him and said, "That's not what I want to talk about. I want you to show the Orbital Knights this."

She motioned towards a small stack of papers on the table in front of her. Slaine walked over to the table and picked up the papers. His eyes widened as he read through the document.

"You wrote this?" he asked, peering down at her.

"Who else?"

"This is…" He swallowed. "I see you put a lot of thought into this."

Lemrina allowed herself to smile. Slaine's tone was carefully neutral, but surely he was giving her idea his approval. Right?

As a way of keeping the Orbital Knights in line, Lemrina had drafted a code of ethical warfare. It was mostly just a list of don'ts at this stage: Don't attack civilians, don't rape, don't pillage, and so on. Lemrina had considered asking for something more drastic, like a ceasefire agreement, but since a number of knights were still on Earth, that would likely cause a revolt. She decided that it was best to start with something that everyone should easily agree upon to see how far she could leverage her powers.

Mostly, though, she just wanted to buy time. If she could delay Slaine's departure, then maybe she could figure out what he was thinking. Whatever he was hiding, it had to be something important. Something she ought to know about.

As those thoughts went through her head, she noticed that Slaine was watching her silently as well. "What?" she asked, a little more breathily than she intended.

"Nothing," said Slaine, and he smiled. A wistful sort of smile. "I'll do what you ask, Your Highness."

For some reason, Lemrina's heart sank as she heard those words. Even though he was obeying her, he turned his back to her.

He did not leave her alone for long. The knights must have demanded to hear her views directly, because within minutes Slaine was leading them into her room. Lemrina recognised a few of the faces distinctly: Count Saazbaum, Count Barouhcruz, Countess Rafia - even Count Mazuurek, with whom she had only spoken to once. Unlike the others, however, Mazuurek did not seem irritated or panicked at losing his Aldnoah privileges. In fact, he almost seemed rather happy about something. The smile he gave Princess Lemrina as he walked into the room was a genuine one, not simply feigned out of politeness.

"What is the meaning of this, Your Highness?" Count Saazbaum asked calmly, knowing that it was unwise to oppose the princess publicly. Lemrina could almost hear the thoughts that must have been going through his mind: _After this, I'll make sure that the princess never lays a finger on our Kataphrakts again._

Lemrina understood the implications loud and clear. What she had written on paper was only the beginning of the negotiations. Unless she forced some real changes very quickly, her power would become entirely meaningless. The knights were her opponents - she must not forget that.

But still, the question remained… was Slaine on her side or not? She glanced in his direction, but he did not meet her eyes. For now, she had to assume that he was on Count Saazbaum's side in these negotiations here. For whatever reason, he wanted to go into battle as soon as possible. The thought caused a pang in her chest, but she comforted herself with the thought that she would talk to him later. There would be time, time enough for everything.

With that thought on her mind, Lemrina opened her mouth and began to talk.

"From what I understand, each knight commands his or her own army. There are no regulations concerning war ethics. That's why I want to use this opportunity to talk about these things and come to an agreement."

"Are you suggesting that we knights fight dishonourably?" a knight named Count Zebrin bristled.

"I know that every knight follows a code of chivalry," Lemrina responded evenly. "As much as I have utmost faith in all of you, I also think that consistency and accountability are vital in times of war."

"I think that's an excellent suggestion, Your Highness," said Mazuurek.

"Thank you, Count Mazuurek. What do the rest of you think?" She swept her gaze over all the knights, looking carefully for any sign of dissent.

"It's fine by me," said Count Barouhcruz.

"Likewise," said Countess Rafia.

"Good," said Princess Lemrina. "Now let's talk about the details of this agreement."

As Lemrina had expected, it was easy to get the knights to agree with ethical warfare in principle. Who would disagree with it, after all? She was pretty sure that exactly none of them were following the basic principles written on the paper, but they were fine words and it was easy for a knight to pretend he was chivalrous.

The difficulty was getting them to agree with the "accountability" part. All knights were to submit detailed reports of their doings on Earth to her. If they refused to do this, or if the reports they submitted did not satisfy her, then she would remove their privileges forever. In addition, Lemrina had the right to give Aldnoah privileges to whomever she wanted, regardless of birth or rank.

In other words, she was threatening to overhaul the entire feudal system if the knights did not follow her strict commands.

As she spoke, Lemrina looked at Count Saazbaum. The more she described her plans, the more he frowned. That made her smile. She liked the idea of making her sister's murderer unhappy. The best thing about all of this was that nobody could object to her ideas out loud because she still had control over their privileges.

Finally, when she had read aloud everything she had written, Count Saazbaum said, "It would be best if we knights discussed your proposal among ourselves."

No. She could not permit this. She had to strike while the iron was hot.

"How so?" asked Lemrina, raising an eyebrow. "Surely I am just reaffirming how the system has always worked."

It was a lie and they both knew it, but if Count Saazbaum admitted as such, he would be turning his back on the very lies that had created the Vers Empire and rendered him into a count of high repute.

And so Count Saazbaum chose to accept the lie. He had no choice.

"Of course, Your Highness," he said. She could see that his mind was working quickly. "Is there anything else you want?"

"Yes," responded Lemrina, and Count Saazbaum's expression turned grimmer, expecting the worst. "I want a honeymoon," she said.

* * *

On retrospect, Lemrina could not have picked better timing to execute her scheme.

Many of the knights who had come to her wedding had gone into space in their Kataphrakts, leaving their armies on standby on Earth. Because they had only expected to remain in space for a short amount of time, they did not take their Landing Castles with them. Some knights, like Klancain, had taken a spaceship to the moon instead of a Kataphrakt and so were not affected by Lemrina's scheme, but her actions had still left about twenty knights stranded on the moon base without their main weaponry. This was a large enough number to cause a noticeable dent on the war effort, especially if she ended up detaining them for a week - the length of her honeymoon.

Desperate to win the princess's favour before she abandoned them all for a week, the knights promised to do anything she asked. Lemrina accepted their promises of loyalty. It was to her advantage if they made a decision without discussing it together and considering all their options first.

Before she returned their powers to them, Lemrina called each knight individually to her room, ostensibly to discuss the terms of the agreement. Her real plan was to convince them of her way of thinking.

"We need to take a pragmatic approach to this war. If you are wasteful, then Earth's resources will be depleted before we can make proper use of them. Do you understand?"

All of them agreed with her when she posed the matter like that. As long as she did not mention Terrans or the word "peace", then she could find common ground with them.

She went on. "I need those detailed reports about Earth because it will make the resettlement process easier. It shouldn't be a bother to you, but I will need full accountability and transparency from you. I'm entrusting you with something very important."

The stupider ones usually fell for the flattery right away. If they didn't respond visibly to the flattery, Lemrina promised unnamed rewards and privileges. All the knights needed to do to win her favour, she told them in finishing, was avoid unnecessary bloodshed, report their doings to her directly and keep her updated on how the other knights were doing as well.

Only one knight listened to all of this and possessed the gall to ask her what her ultimate plan was.

"Are you by any chance planning to negotiate peace with Earth?" asked Count Mazuurek.

After about twenty conversations with various knights which had all progressed almost the exact same way, Lemrina opened her mouth and found that she did not have any words to say.

"I'm sorry," Count Mazuurek said quickly, mistaking Lemrina's silence for offence. "It's just… that's what I'd do in your situation."

"Please elaborate, Count Mazuurek."

Mazuurek smiled at the encouragement. "Well, this is a war for resources, is it not? However, as you pointed out yourself, Earth's resources are finite, so the more sensible thing to do is negotiate for them instead of engaging in a pointlessly destructive war. In order to do that, I would want to keep the Orbital Knights in line."

"How very interesting of you to say, Count Mazuurek."

Lemrina could barely contain her delight. Finally, an Orbital Knight with common sense!

As much as Lemrina was tempted to discuss her real plans with a like-minded individual, she decided it was best to keep her hands close to her chest for now. So she merely gave Mazuurek some further instructions and presented him her hand to kiss. At least she would give him his Aldnoah privileges back - she owed him that much.

Just as Mazuurek had pressed his lips against her hand, the door opened and Slaine walked into the room. He caught sight of what Mazuurek and Lemrina were doing and turned his head away.

When Mazuurek was finished kissing the princess's hand, he walked to the door and bowed in Lemrina's direction. He smiled at Slaine but Slaine only nodded curtly back at him.

An odd sort of silence filled the room once Mazuurek was gone.

It was the first time Lemrina had the opportunity to speak with Slaine since the negotiations with the knights had started. He looked at her and she looked at him, and neither of them smiled.

"Jealous are you, Slaine?" was the first thing Lemrina said.

"You know that's not what I-"

"Oh, I know," said Lemrina, dropping her gaze. "I know all too well."

The thought had crossed her mind when Mazuurek kissed her hand. Logically speaking, it probably would have been a better idea to marry someone like Count Mazuurek - someone who would have supported her negotiation plans. The problem was that she had assumed Slaine would be that person when she married him.

Now, though, she had no idea what was going on in Slaine's head. Had he always been this inscrutable, or had she merely been blinded by love? How did he even feel about her? She feared to ask. She did not want to hear the answer from his lips.

At the same time, he had always, always been so kind and gentle with her. She wanted to believe in him. She still believed in him.

"Lemrina," he uttered her name, prompting her to look up.

There it was - that gentle look in his eyes. It was almost more than Lemrina could bear.

"I know you mean well," he said, "but you shouldn't be so impulsive."

"Why do you want to go back to battle? Isn't _that _the definition of impulsive?"

"Don't you understand? I'm doing it to keep you safe."

Lemrina closed her eyes. She could almost understand Slaine's point of view, but not quite. Did he just want to keep fighting until there were no enemies left? But surely he knew as well as she did that the Orbital Knights posed more of an immediate threat to her than the Terrans. That was why he had agreed to marry her in the first place, wasn't it? It was all so infuriating.

_Don't you see, Slaine? I don't want you to fight. I just want you to stay by my side._

She had said all sorts of embarrassing things to him before, but now she could not say those words. It hurt too much, putting her heart in his hands and watching him tear it apart with his infinite tact and delicacy.

"How naïve of you," was all she could say aloud.

"No, you're the naïve one," he responded with unexpected bluntness. "Do you think that just talking to the knights will get them to see sense? How do you plan to police their actions when they can simply lie to you?"

Lemrina stiffened. She knew that Slaine had a point. The knights could all promise that they were following the rules even if they weren't, and Lemrina would never be the wiser. As long as she acted alone, she could never hope to enforce the rules she made, not in the long term.

Of course she knew all that. She wasn't a fool.

"That's why I want you to help me, Slaine." She peered up at him, pleading with her eyes.

Slaine, however, remained steely-gazed.

"I _am _helping you. I told you that I would take care of Count Saazbaum."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Really, she didn't. Everything that came out of his mouth sounded foreign and bizarre. From what she could understand, they could both identify the same problems, but they disagreed on the solutions. But what was Slaine's solution? How was more fighting on Earth going to fix the problem with Count Saazbaum?

"I don't know what you're planning," Lemrina said slowly, "but the only way we're ever going to end the war is through negotiations. I wouldn't be alive today if someone wasn't willing to negotiate."

She fingered the pendant around her neck as she spoke. Kaizuka Yuki had given it to her - she would not forget that.

Slaine's gaze followed her fingers. There was something terribly pained about his expression, Lemrina realised. It was difficult to describe, let alone decipher.

"You… you shouldn't," he insisted quietly. "She's… she's already…"

He stopped.

The name of a ghost hovered between them, unspoken. For a moment, it was as if they were looking at each other through a haze, their faces slightly out of focus.

_Don't say it_, Lemrina begged him silently. The thought came to her, unbidden. She wondered what they were both so afraid of.

Slaine swallowed.

"Anyway," he said, changing the subject. "Just trust me, please. I'll take care of it all, so you don't have to worry."

As he spoke, he took Lemrina's hands and held them in his. His hands were small and delicate for a man's, but they still dwarfed hers. They were nice hands, warm and reliable.

As soon as he touched her, Lemrina shivered, remembering last night and the feel of his hands against her naked skin. She remembered his scars, the caustic reminder of all the horrors he had been through that she would never entirely understand.

How much had he suffered? How deep did his anger and misery really go?

With a stifled gasp, Lemrina let go of Slaine's hands and hugged herself with her arms.

"Are you all right?" Slaine asked her, eyes wide with concern.

But Lemrina could not respond to her knight in shining armour.

All of a sudden, she knew. She figured out what he was planning. It made perfect sense for him. The timing was just right, and no one would ever see it coming. Out on the battlefield, anyone could die, even the most battle-hardened veteran. No one would ever be the wiser. He was smart - if anyone could pull it off, it was him.

_Slaine was planning to murder Count Saazbaum._


	17. IV) The Lies We Tell for Love

**Author's note: **Rating was bumped up because of this chapter lol

**16\. The Lies We Tell for Love**

When Count Marylcian passed away on Earth, he left no close kin to inherit his property, so his Landing Castle was returned to the royal family. Now, it belonged to Lemrina and Slaine, if primarily in title. It was the princess's idea to spend their honeymoon inside the count's Landing Castle - away from the moon base where Count Saazbaum staked his influence.

Under any other circumstance, a honeymoon might have been the romantic highlight Lemrina had always dreamed of. She still remembered those fantasies she had of eloping with a dashing knight and being carried off into the sunset. Such dreams always ended at the honeymoon, partly because Lemrina had never put much thought into what was supposed to happen next in a marriage, and partly because seclusion had always felt like the main point of the romantic stories Lemrina had grown up reading. To a young girl who had always longed to escape the society she had been born into, the idea of a honeymoon held an intoxicating appeal.

Never would the younger Lemrina have considered that escaping with someone meant carrying their baggage too, and that being protected by a knight did not mean salvation but only the prospect of more violence. In a world where everyone was the enemy except for her knight, the war would never stop raging.

Today, when Lemrina thought of her honeymoon, she did so knowing and dreading what would come next. A honeymoon meant seclusion, but the universe did not stand still during that time. She could not escape the war, not even in her most intimate moments.

"We will arrive at our destination soon, Your Highness," Slaine said beside her, shaking her from her thoughts. In public, he never made any move to touch her, not even to hold her hand. Even in private, he was so terribly reserved.

Sitting securely on her seat in the space shuttle, Lemrina merely looked at her husband mutely, as if seeing him for the first time.

He really was a handsome young man. His features were almost like a woman's - smooth skin, long eyelashes and a slender, clean-shaven face. It was hard to believe that the owner of such a beautiful face could harbor so many dark thoughts.

Slaine must have noticed her looking at him, because he tilted his head and met her eyes directly. His long eyelashes fluttered as he blinked.

"You must be looking forward to our trip," he said, his lips forming a smile as gentle and earnest as it was guilty.

As he looked at her, all the conflicted emotions Lemrina had been dwelling on swept through her entire body like a sudden gust of wind. Yet at the same time… perhaps she was happy that they were together, at least for this paper-thin moment, doomed never to last.

She had one week to change Slaine's mind. If she could not manage it in time, then all was lost. Everything she had ever wanted would lie beyond her reach forever.

After all, if she could not convince the man she loved out of killing, then how could she hope to bring peace to all of Earth and Mars?

* * *

Like many Landing Castles, Count Marylcian's castle was lavish and ostentatious. The furnishings were a combination of high-tech machinery and Renaissance-era aesthetics. Despite the castle's extraordinary size - large enough to fit a small town - every room was impeccably maintained. Though Marylcian himself was gone, his soldiers and servants continued to inhabit the castle. For them, life went on as usual. Hardly any trace remained of Marylcian's individual personality.

On the first day of their honeymoon, Slaine went around to each room filling them with all sorts of flowers from Earth. In the end, they were only holographs, but Lemrina had to admit that they were pretty. Though she had never seen such sights from her own brief visit, it seemed that Earth was full of beautiful things.

Lemrina had always personally preferred the eerie, understated beauty of the moon, but she could not deny the appeal of what she saw in front of her. She was temporarily blinded by the light and colour of a world she did not fully understand but could not bring herself to dislike. For some reason, the sight of it made something in her heart ache.

Was this what Earth was really like? Or was it just an illusion made possible by the power of Aldnoah?

"How do you like it?" Slaine asked her, a slight smile on his face. He seemed to enjoy the act of refurbishing. Their bedroom, a once austere sort of chamber with a high ceiling and grey walls, came alive with vivid colours as soon as he filled the vases with fake hydrangeas.

Instead of answering his question, Lemrina said, "I didn't know you liked flowers."

There were a lot of things she didn't know about Slaine.

"I thought you would like them," he said.

She did not have the heart to tell him that the sight of so many flowers caused her inexplicable sadness, no matter how beautiful they were. She had dragged him to this honeymoon against his will; she had no right to complain. So she smiled and told him that the flowers were lovely.

"I'm glad," he said, and he honestly did sound relieved. "I wasn't sure what would make you happy. I'm not the right person for this."

_Oh, Slaine._

She wondered how it must feel for him to be married to a girl he did not love. It had to hurt for him too, didn't it?

Still, she had to go through with this. She had to try and reach him. Even if he could not fall in love with her, she wanted him to understand.

"It's okay," she murmured. "Just being here is enough."

She would try to understand.

* * *

He spent the rest of the day talking about flowers, explaining where they grew and the language associated with them. He sounded so knowledgeable about the subject, as if he had spent a lifetime explaining all of this to somebody else. She did not understand everything he talked about, and all the flowers blended together in her mind before much time passed, but she listened intently to every word that came from his lips. She felt that she owed it to him for all the times she had ignored his lessons about Earth.

Eventually, a yawn escaped from her mouth, so they went to bed together. Only then did Slaine fall into silence, eager to leave her to her slumber.

On the second day of their honeymoon, Slaine let her sleep in and was not inside the bed when she woke up. At first, she panicked. Had Slaine abandoned her? Was she really, truly alone now? Just as she was starting to tremble, Slaine came into the room and she breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't going anywhere.

"What do you like to do in your free time?" she asked him that morning, for she got the impression that Slaine was somewhat restless. Perhaps he was thinking about how he would kill Count Saazbaum and that all of this was a waste of time.

She shivered, though luckily Slaine did not seem to notice.

"I don't know," he responded with a sheepish laugh. "It's been a long time since I had this much free time."

"What about when you were younger?"

"Well…" Slaine's brow furrowed in recollection. "My father and I travelled a lot, so we were always so busy…" He trailed off.

"Surely there's something you like doing!" Lemrina insisted.

"I guess… I like reading books," he said finally.

Lemrina wondered why it was so unearthly difficult to get him to reveal even the most casual things about himself. It wasn't even as if he was being secretive, she realised. He was just painfully shy once you dug past his duties and his knighthood.

"What sort of books do you like reading?"

"Oh, anything." And then he said, as suddenly remembering something, "I really like old books, the way they feel in your hand. I always liked libraries."

Lemrina, who had only ever read books on a screen, had no idea what Slaine was talking about. Still, she did give the matter some thought. She could easily imagine Slaine as the kind of child who spent his evenings buried in books, lacking siblings or friends to play with. She had grown up much the same way herself.

"Count Mazuurek gave us Earth books for a wedding present," she said finally. Not that she read them herself - she didn't have the time to even spare a glance at them, really. "Maybe you'd like those."

"Why would Count Mazuurek have Earth books?"

"Oh, he's a collector of Earth things," Lemrina said, for that was what Mazuurek had told her.

"You seem to have developed quite a friendship with Count Mazuurek…" Slaine muttered.

"I'll get Harklight to deliver us the books," Lemrina announced. The idea had come to her suddenly and her eyes lit up at the prospect.

"Um, you don't have to-"

"I don't want you to be bored on our honeymoon," Lemrina interrupted him. "I want you to enjoy yourself too, all right?"

As she expected, he relented. Triumphantly, Lemrina got to work sending a message to the moon base asking for Mazuurek's books. When she turned back to Slaine, he was smiling in amusement. This was a surprise. Lemrina had expected him to be slightly annoyed or smiling in that strained, polite way that was all too familiar to her now.

"There's one thing about you. You always know what you want, Lemrina."

She sniffed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's a good thing. Well, sometimes."

"_Sometimes_?"

He only laughed and scratched the back of his head in response.

"Are you making fun of me, Slaine?"

"Of course not. I would never!"

She had no idea if he was pulling one over her and it absolutely infuriated her. Or maybe she was just thinking herself into a knot. This was difficult.

"Really, Lemrina. I'm not making fun of you." Slaine must have noticed what she was thinking because he hastened to reassure her. "I admire your clear-headedness. I just worry if you'll be hurt."

"Oh," said Lemrina.

It was the closest he had ever come to talking about his feelings towards her. She wasn't sure what to make of the admission.

"That's why you shouldn't make impulsive decisions," he went on. "We should talk about it together first."

What a fine thing for _him _to say, Lemrina thought.

"Then the same thing goes for you," she said.

He blinked. "Yes, of course."

"Is there something you're planning to do?" Lemrina asked, looking him straight in the eyes. "Something you haven't told me about?"

For a brief millisecond, there was silence. Lemrina probed Slaine with her eyes, and she could tell that he knew she was doing it. He hesitated during that almost indiscernible moment, but for Lemrina it was enough.

"Nothing comes to mind," said Slaine, showing her his most rigid and unwavering smile.

* * *

The books arrived several hours later, soon after lunchtime. Harklight came over to their room personally to deliver them. He smiled in his usual brisk and efficient manner. One would hardly think he had just been summoned all the way from the moon to deliver a stack of books on the whim of a princess on honeymoon. Slaine and Harklight did, however, exchange knowing glances before Harklight took his leave.

Unfortunately for Lemrina, she had stopped caring about the books by the time they arrived. All she could think about was Slaine's lie - which might not actually have been a lie, or at least not the lie she was thinking of. She had no concrete proof of anything, after all. The only thing she knew of for certain was that there was a deep sense of foreboding in her gut. They could not go on like this.

As Lemrina remained still in her chair, deep in thought, Slaine flicked through the books and let out a quiet sigh of nostalgia.

"I always loved this book," he said.

Lemrina did not recognise the book he was holding, but she noticed the fond smile on Slaine's face. It was enough to make her forget all the plots and counterplots that simmered between them for now. Slaine was just a boy, as hopelessly caught up as she was in matters he did not entirely understand.

"Tell me about the book," she said to him, clenching her hands against her chest. "Tell me about the stories you used to read."

Today, the two of them would forget the world they lived in, so that they could lose themselves in stories of hope and adventure - the stories Slaine had loved as a boy.

* * *

On the third day of their honeymoon, they went to the observatory and watched the Earth.

The blue planet, always partially obscured by clouds, seemed to lie just beneath their feet. If only Lemrina could leave her wheelchair, perhaps she could grasp Earth with her own two hands. She wondered how the Orbital Knights must have felt looking down at Earth for fifteen long years, gazing down at a heavenly blue planet forever close and yet so elusive.

Every time Lemrina looked at Earth, she could only think of the war. Of all things, she remembered when that Terran soldier had kissed her. He had shoved his tongue down her throat and enveloped her mouth so that she could not breathe.

A sudden wave of disgust came over her so visceral and searing that she was almost physically sick.

"Is something the matter?" Slaine asked.

"Nothing," Lemrina lied.

Slaine looked at her for a moment, and then he said, "You want to negotiate peace with Earth, don't you?"

"Well…"

She could not say no to the question, but she could not quite say yes either. Not in the way that Slaine was thinking about.

"I want the war to end," Lemrina said finally.

"So do I," said Slaine.

"At least we agree on something," she said wryly, although she could not bring herself to smile.

They fell into silence then, and Lemrina knew that Slaine was thinking of ghosts.

_I'm not like her_, Lemrina wanted to say, but she knew that the truth was too shameful. She was no saint, not like her sister was. She could never bring herself to love Earth.

"I'm sorry," Slaine said suddenly.

"What are you apologising for?"

"I should have protected you better. I should never have let you go to Earth."

"I'm glad I went," Lemrina said, before correcting herself. "No, not glad. I suppose it was more like something that needed to happen."

"Do you want to go back down there again?"

She gazed down at the blue planet, remembering both the Terran soldier's kiss and Kaizuka Yuki's sacrifice.

"I don't know. Maybe when it's all over," she said finally, although she did not know when that would be.

* * *

On the fourth day of their honeymoon, Lemrina woke up and thought, _It's already half over._

She wondered if Slaine was enjoying himself. He spent so much of his time reading, but for the first time since she had known him, he seemed content. She did not want to disturb him in his leisure, just as he did not want to disturb her.

If only time could stand still; if only they never had to turn their back on this quiet peace.

She was glad that Slaine chose not to reproach her for demanding a honeymoon. Perhaps he thought it was only fair to her, that he ought to do his duty as a husband properly before he acted on his own impulses. Or maybe he just felt sorry for her.

"Do you regret coming here?" she asked him, even though she already knew what his verbal answer to her would be.

"Of course not. I feel like I should thank you, even. It's been so long since I had this much free time."

He said the same thing as before, only this time he sounded wistful.

Deep down, he wanted this solace as much as she did. His heart longed for a peace that could be obtained by running away.

"Slaine, I don't want you to fight anymore," Lemrina said.

"Lemrina… you know that's not something I-"

"I don't care," Lemrina interrupted him. "I won't let you do it."

Four days had passed and she still hadn't given him his Aldnoah powers back. Slaine looked at her eyes and then at her mouth, before looking back at her eyes again.

Lemrina wondered what would happen if Slaine threw his inhibitions to the wind and kissed her without asking, abandoning himself to passion. The thought caused her to blush hard enough that she could not meet Slaine's gaze.

"You'll have to let me do it eventually," she heard him say with a sigh. "But I understand. I can't force you."

A part of Lemrina had been hoping that something more would happen between them on their honeymoon, but just as he could not force her, she could not force him. Besides, she had no idea what would happen if things changed between them. Maybe they were better like this.

And so, the peace continued.

* * *

That night, Lemrina lay awake next to Slaine, listening to him breathe. She could tell that he was not yet asleep. He always seemed to doze off after she did and wake up before her in the morning.

After their honeymoon, they would probably not sleep together again like this. Many things would change when he was back on the battlefield. She would have to spend her nights alone waiting for him. Perhaps he would never return. Or maybe he would return, but as a different person.

Even now, she spent her nights waiting, counting down the days.

She shivered involuntarily, drawing the blankets closer around herself.

"Slaine…"

"Yes?"

"Are you really okay with me? I bet you never wanted to marry me…"

"I swore to do whatever I could to keep you safe," he said.

"I know, but…" She drew her gaze to the flowers in the vase on the bedside table. "I know you don't want me. I'm not pretty."

"That's not true. You're very pretty."

"Huh? Really?" Her heart suddenly felt light in her chest. Slaine had never commented on her looks before.

"Yes. You have very pretty eyes."

She blinked. "Pretty eyes?"

"They're very striking. Even when you smile, they somehow seem sad. It's hard to look away."

Oh. Was that really how she came across? She felt self-conscious. "That's your idea of pretty? You have odd taste, Slaine."

Yet even as she spoke, she blushed. After all, it was the first time Slaine had ever said she was beautiful.

He smiled faintly in the darkness. Even though he had just said she was pretty, he made no move to touch her in the privacy of their bed.

"You sort of remind me of a blue rose," he said.

* * *

She had a dream where he made love to her. He draped her body with kisses, all the while whispering that he would protect her forever. In the dream, she told him _yes, yes, yes._

Then he looked over his shoulder and saw a ghost with golden hair and he stopped and he went to her and by the time he came back his hands were dripping with blood and when he touched her the blood stained her skin and swallowed her whole and she couldn't breathe and she said _no no no stop no please _but it was too late by then he was already

* * *

She woke up on the fifth day and found that nothing had changed. Everything was exactly the same.

Except for Lemrina.

Some physiological change must have taken place within her because whenever she looked at Slaine, she imagined his naked, scarred body - the body he refused to let her see anymore. Tiny pinpricks of heat passed through her whenever that happened. But as soon as the heat passed, she was left with gaping emptiness and dread.

With renewed urgency, she tried to talk to him, to convince him of peace. She tried to reason with him, but because he thought he understood the principle she could not convince him of the nuances. Eventually, she fell to begging. "Please, Slaine, tell me what you're thinking. I want to know. I need to know."

But instead of reaching out to him, her begging only left him confused. "Lemrina, if you are ill-"

"No, no, no, that's not it. I want to know what you're thinking right now."

She was stirring herself into a frenzy now, but still he did not understand what she was so worried about. They talked and talked, but they did not communicate. Were they on opposite sides or the same side? Why did the true meaning of her words fail to reach him? Were they too used to lying for so long?

Eventually, she had no choice but to speak of her suspicions directly. "Don't kill Count Saazbaum. It's not the right way. There's a better way to do this. There must be."

He gasped, and she thought that maybe, _finally _she had reached him, but then he said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

But he did. He _had _to know. He was lying so that he could accept all the sins she would never have been able to bear. He was lying to protect her. She was certain of it.

Yet no matter how much Lemrina pushed against him, he would not tell her what she truly wanted to know. He kept his heart closed to her.

"You're imagining things, Lemrina. I have no dreams."

He kept on repeating this until she calmed down. He was so gentle and sweet that in the end, she found herself wondering if she _was _paranoid. Maybe Slaine had never been plotting murder to begin with. How could she be so wicked to accuse him of something like that? Oh, what was he thinking right now?

She was no closer to understanding him.

* * *

She had another dream about him that night. In the dream, he did not make love to her - he ravaged her. He tore off her clothes and had his way with her and she liked it. She had never had such an explicit dream before and she could not understand it. Some part of her was aware that if Slaine actually ravaged her without asking, it would be terrible, but for some reason she liked it in the dream.

She woke up in the middle of the night, her body flushing from head to toe. Slaine was still fast asleep. He seemed, for once, peaceful. Looking at him sleeping so innocently, she was filled with burning shame.

But no amount of shame could stop the desire pulsating through her adolescent body. She could not simply go back to sleep now, not with every one of her nerves tingling with unfulfilled pleasure. She was painfully conscious of the wet heat between her thighs.

She was tempted to wake him up right now and beg him to take her, the way he had in the dream. The problem was that she did not understand him. They were husband and wife, and they were also strangers.

She could not leave the bed either, for she could not move her legs. Lemrina wanted to cry. In the end, she clamped one hand over her mouth and placed the other between her legs, working her fingers until she found some small measure of release.

* * *

On the sixth day of their honeymoon, Lemrina wanted to be alone.

She told Slaine that she wanted to have a bath and she noticed that he did not suggest joining her, not that she honestly expected him to. She had the servants prepare the bath for her. When Lemrina was finally alone, she hugged herself and stared at her reflection in the water.

_Pretty eyes_, he had told her. It occurred to Lemrina that he might have been remarking on the futility of it all.

Then she looked at the pendant in her hand, which she had taken off just before getting inside the bath.

After passing hands so many times, the pendant was scratched and chipped all over, but somehow all those tiny chains still linked together.

"I always admired you," Lemrina said dully. "And I always hated you. When will you release your hold on him?"

The pendant offered no response, but still Lemrina went on speaking.

"Why can't I be as good as you? I don't understand him. I don't even understand myself. I've changed so much. What's happening to me?"

A pause.

"If you were here, you would have been able to reach him. He loves you, do you know that? He went to the ends of the earth for you. That's why I hate you. I wouldn't even be alive now if it weren't for you. All this time I thought you were naïve, but in the end, you were more right than anyone."

She brought the pendant close to her chest and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.

"Please, sister, give me hope."

* * *

That night, before she went to bed, Lemrina found herself thinking about Earth.

One day, would she be able to reach the heavenly blue sky her sister had believed in? Even though she was chained to the ground, she would reach out for that same sky and sing the same arias. For the sake of a better tomorrow, she would dive headfirst into a sky of pitch black and allow herself to believe in the light of the dawn.

* * *

When Slaine came into their bed after laying her down gently on the sheets first, he said, "Tomorrow, we go back."

He sounded remorseful, as if he was tempted to stay longer but knew that it was impossible.

Lemrina agreed that it was impossible. They could only move forward, even if their every action was weighed down by the incessant pull of the past. The one thing they could not do was stand still. Even doing nothing was a form of action in a world that marched on at its own pace and left them in the dust.

In the silence of their final night together, Lemrina lay motionless beside Slaine and changed her face. She could do it now. She would take the future into the palm of her hand. Today, she would become a different person than who she had been yesterday.

"Slaine…" she murmured, and before he could respond to her she wrapped her arms around him. She could sense his body tensing from her touch, but she only held him tighter. "Slaine, my friend… my precious friend…"

Until now, they had always stepped around each other's wounds, fearful of overstepping an unspoken boundary, but in one touch, she destroyed it all. Today, she had the courage to do it. Nothing would ever be the same between them.

He lay very still, as if afraid to breathe.

She rested her head on his back and exhaled deeply. He felt so vulnerable in arms. He had always held in her in his arms like a piece of glass, but now that she was holding him instead, she realised that he might just be the delicate one.

"You've suffered too much…" she whispered, noticing how he trembled from her touch. Perhaps all along Slaine had been the kind of person who found physical intimacy too much to handle. She could feel his scars through his flimsy nightshirt.

She found herself trembling a little as well, for her heart bled profusely. She could feel his wounds almost as keenly as if they had been inflicted on her own body. Her chest felt full with an emotion not quite like anguish or sadness, although somehow it made want her to cry.

He was at a loss for words. "I… I…" He sounded as if he could not continue.

"It's okay, Slaine. It's okay." She squeezed him tighter. "You've done so much for me. I'll always be grateful."

"I'm not… I don't deserve…"

"You do. You do deserve it. Don't ever think you don't deserve love."

"L-love?" She could hear his voice quavering.

It was as if he found it ridiculous to believe that anyone could possibly love him.

He was a fool just the same way she was.

"Yes, Slaine. I love you." And as she spoke, she realised that she did not just love him - she loved humanity as well. She loved the goodness that human hearts were capable of. She loved him because he was human. "I believe in your kindness."

He trembled again in her arms. "You don't understand. I've killed."

It was true that she could never _truly _understand all the emotions he felt. When she closed her eyes and tried to imagine, she thought she could feel something resounding very strongly within her, but it wasn't quite the same feeling he had experienced.

She could never understand how it felt to kill another person, and yet…

She did not let go of him.

"Even so, I believe in your kindness."

She could almost _feel _the moment his barriers came down. She heard him gasp and let out a choked noise. But she only knew for certain that she had reached him when he turned around in the bed and she finally saw his face.

He was crying; his eyes were bright with tears. She watched as the tears rolled down his cheek. He did not even bother wiping them away.

"Do you truly believe that?" he asked. Never did he sound more desperate to know the answer.

Soundlessly, she brought a finger and wiped the tears away for him. As she did, she smiled at him, and he smiled too. In all the time she had known him, she had never seen him smile so genuinely. He truly was a beautiful person.

"I do," she insisted. "I do believe in you. I'll believe in you even if no one else will."

A tear dropped on her face, causing her to blink. Slaine was hovering over her now, stroking her hair with such a tender expression on his face that it made her heart ache.

"Thank you," he said.

And then he kissed her.

It was different from the chaste kiss at their wedding. Even though he was still gentle, he pressed their lips together for what felt like a long time. All at once, her insides turned to jelly. It never occurred to her to resist. Instinctively, she brought her hands up to his head, running her fingers through the soft, feathery strands of his hair.

He only pulled away briefly to take a breath, and then he kissed her again. She could feel his tongue probing at her mouth, and she parted her lips to let him in.

What filled her then was a sense of completeness she had never known before. She had fantasised for days about Slaine kissing her, but now that he was doing it, she forgot everything. All she could think was that at long last she had reached him.

When finally, he broke the kiss, gasping for breath, a familiar heat coursed through her body. The kiss had left her tingling and wanting more. She looked into his eyes and saw - for the first time - desire.

"W-we shouldn't," he stammered, but he did not pull away when she stroked his cheek with her right palm.

"It's okay," she whispered as her heart hammered in her chest. "I want you to do it."

Slaine did not take much convincing, for soon enough he was kissing her again, his tongue warm and slick inside her mouth. This time, his hands roamed across her body with urgency and need that he must have kept bottled up for so long. He helped her out of her nightgown and then shrugged off his own clothes, so that she could see his scarred body on full display once again. She traced the scars on his back as he pressed their bodies together, murmuring incomprehensible things into her ears.

Before she knew it, he was _in _her. And even though it hurt so much - for it was unbearably tight down there - she wrapped her arms around him and held him close as he panted his release. She would accept all the pain, no matter how deep it was, if that was what it took to truly reach him. He was as naked and vulnerable as she was, and she accepted him. She accepted all of him.

She heard him groaning as he reached all the way inside her. His shudders reverberated throughout her entire body.

"I love you…" she heard him say. "I love you… Asseylum…"

He twisted his face and shuddered once more against her, and then finally became very still.


	18. IV) If I Could Speak

**17\. If I Could Speak**

Slaine was looking at her.

It was the first thing she saw when she woke up - his eyes, peering directly at hers. He seemed entranced. Slowly, he blinked, and with effort he wrenched his gaze away and turned his head to the ceiling.

"I hate myself," he said.

As she watched him breathe in and out, his chest rising and falling to the rhythm of an invisible clock only he seemed to hear, memories of last night trickled through her mind. He had touched her in a way he had never done before and may never would again. It had been sweet, but also painful. Right now, however, she could not feel any pain at all, not even between her legs.

It was only when she opened her mouth that she realised she could not speak. She had no desire to, for she had poured out everything last night. Today, any words she uttered would seem hollow and fake, like badly acted lines from a play.

"I did something terrible to you," she heard Slaine say, as if from far away.

She wanted to ask _what? _She could not remember him doing anything wrong. She loved him. She had told him so, and he had said the same thing in return.

But then she saw Slaine sit up in the bed and cover his face with his hands and an unsettling shiver passed through her. It was then that she remembered that today, she was Lemrina.

"I knew it was all a lie," he muttered. "But still, I did it anyway."

Finally, she croaked out an answer. "Slaine, it wasn't your fault." As she expected, her voice sounded too loud for this quiet room.

"No, it was. You're not Princess Asseylum. All I've ever done is hurt you."

His voice was thick with self-loathing. Somehow, Lemrina knew that she was seeing the real Slaine, that all of this was the true evidence of his scars. She knew that this was what it meant to reach him.

"You're wrong," she said quietly. "I did it because I wanted to."

He removed his hands from his face and looked at her. His eyes were haggard. "Why?" he asked.

"Because I love you."

His expression split with guilt. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

Somehow, he seemed more torn and anguished about all of this than she was. To Lemrina, it did not matter whether he loved her or not. She had known the truth all along. All that she had ever wanted was for him to be honest with her.

And so she smiled at his answer.

"It's okay, Slaine," she whispered, reaching over and touching him on the arm. "I already know."

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"I know."

"It's just… I can't. I wish I could, but I can't."

"I know."

"I'm sorry," he said once again.

It occurred to her that even if he could not call it love, neither of them could doubt that his feelings for her were genuine.

Just like last night, she put her arms around him and he did not push her away. Perhaps he believed in her kindness, just as she believed in his.

They remained like that for a while, clinging to each other like two wounded animals. Slaine seemed to know as well as she did that it was a lie they both sought for comfort, but somehow, it wasn't wrong, even if it _was_ a lie. He knew the truth all too well, because at length he began to speak, and for a very long while, all he talked about was Asseylum.

She saved his life, not just once, but twice, thrice, countless times - she saved him every time they met. When he was friendless, she played with him. When he was fatherless, she comforted him. When he was useless, she made him her teacher. When he was visionless, she became his light.

Slaine's narrative was rambling and disjointed, and the parts of his story that he lingered on were always about his worthlessness. Sometimes, as he talked about the good-hearted person Asseylum had always been, he would fall into a long pause, and an expression of wretched loneliness would come over his face. She was his friend, his precious friend. Even if she did not love him, he fell in love with her kindness. Her kindness was what made him believe in the existence of love.

The more Slaine talked about her, the more Lemrina got the impression that, in a way, it was never really about Asseylum to begin with. Lemrina was not him, would never be him, but she understood this narrative progression. As Slaine went on and on, unable to stop himself from talking about his feelings of inadequacy, Lemrina realised that this might be the first time he had ever poured his heart out to anyone.

_She was a far kinder person than I could ever be…_

_I was never worthy of her…_

_I only wanted to be useful to her…_

Slaine was halfway through recounting how Asseylum had always asked him to teach her about birds from Earth when suddenly he switched gears and started talking about the first person he ever killed. Baron Trillram was a petty bully and a cruel master and even though Slaine was horrified at himself and at the war and he wanted it all to stop, he could not stop squeezing the trigger once he started. He only stopped shooting when he ran out of bullets. Slaine admitted that a part of him had felt good about murdering Baron Trillram, that he felt he was exacting justice through the act. That feeling did not last, not even for seconds. As he was attempting to throw the baron's corpse into the water, he was overcome with nausea and retched all over the ground.

He said that he did it all for Asseylum.

Then he was talking about his childhood on Earth, long before he met the princess. He travelled the world but had no home. At the various schools he attended, he became scared of making friends, because saying goodbye always tore his heart to pieces. He retreated into his shell and read books and studied hard for subjects he never really cared for.

He talked about his father, who had always been such a busy man. Slaine was never able to say goodbye to him either. In a way, the latter years of his father's life had been a long, drawn-out farewell that neither of them ever verbalised. By then, he was so absorbed in his research that he became a stranger. When was the last time they ever had a heartfelt conversation? Now Slaine would never be able to know what his father was thinking.

Suddenly, he switched the topic to Count Saazbaum, his foster father. When Count Saazbaum had said he would become Slaine's father, a part of Slaine had felt… happy. For Count Saazbaum had always explained himself to Slaine. He had always been so honest and forthright in a way that Slaine's real father had never been. But it was all so wrong and twisted, too, because this was the same man who had killed Princess Asseylum and Slaine would never forgive him, so he would kill him with his own hands and he would-

At this point, Lemrina interrupted the story.

"So you _were _planning to kill him."

"That's right," Slaine admitted heavily. "I'm not as good a person as you think I am."

"You won't kill him," Lemrina said. "You are a good person."

"How do you know that?" His voice was strained. "I've already done so many terrible things…"

"Because you _want _to be a good person."

He was silent for a moment. "That's not enough," he said. He spoke with full awareness that the best intentions could translate into the worst results, and that this was never an excuse for evil.

"You're right," said Lemrina. "It's not enough. That's why you can't act alone."

"What do you mean?"

"All this time, you've been alone. I can tell. How can you know if your actions will ever lead to good if no one can tell you how it will affect them? If it's just you against the world, how will you ever find the peace you desire?"

He breathed sharply, as if her words had hit him like a slap in the face.

"I…" He struggled. "I…"

"Slaine, listen to me. Your choices are never as limited as they seem."

"How can you say that? What makes you believe?"

Now it was Lemrina's turn to talk about herself.

She told him about how it felt growing up without the use of her legs, knowing that she was nothing but a tool. She told him how she came to resent everyone, including her own sister. She told him how she had wanted to use him in order to avoid the fate that had been forced upon her since the day she was born.

She told him how it felt when all her plans backfired, how it felt to be captured and manhandled by the enemy. She told him how it felt to lose all hope.

Mostly, however, she told him about the choice she made on that island and how Kaizuka Yuki had responded to it. When confronted with the prospect of being held permanently captive, she said no and pointed a gun at her own head. In a situation where she had no choice, she created one, even if she ultimately failed to liberate herself.

And instead of breaking her promise out of necessity, Kaizuka Yuki chose to uphold it. In doing so, she saved Lemrina's life at the cost of her own. That simple kindness, born out of an unimaginable sacrifice, was enough to inspire Lemrina to believe in what human beings were truly capable of. Even in a world at war where every living person was chained to the ground, doomed never to spread their wings and fly, a person had the ability to choose between right and wrong.

"I know that you're capable of it too, Slaine. I believe in you."

He was silent. For a moment, she thought he would not respond at all.

"How can I believe when Princess Asseylum is dead?"

There it was. The most important question. The question neither of them had dared to ask aloud for fear of what the answer might be.

How could Lemrina believe in the same peace Asseylum had yearned for, when Asseylum had died attempting to reach it?

How could Lemrina believe in the inherent goodness of humans, when Asseylum had been killed by a human?

How could Lemrina tell Slaine not to kill Count Saazbaum, when Saazbaum's continued existence was preventing the peace Asseylum had tried so hard to cultivate?

In the end, Asseylum's ideals were naïve and full of contradictions.

But even so…

"She was not wrong. She was never wrong. If you believe that she was wrong, then she truly will be gone."

It was the best answer Lemrina could come up with. As she spoke the words, however, she realised that she believed in them and that, even more importantly, they were the words that Slaine most desperately needed to hear.

Lemrina understood now that he had always been in love with the idea of Asseylum. When she was gone, he was lost. It was impossible for him to conceive that someone else could embody her ideals. Last night, Lemrina had changed that. Even if her appearance had been nothing but an illusion, to Slaine she was real - no, more than real. She was a lie that had become truth. He could no longer deny to himself or to her how important Asseylum still was to him or how desperately he wanted to believe in her.

"I wonder…" He spoke up finally. "I wonder if things really will be okay. I gave up the ability to see the future."

He was talking about the Aldnoah drive inside the Tharsis.

"I don't know either," Lemrina admitted. "But I feel better thinking of it this way."

He looked at her, hesitant and uncertain. Their faces were so close they were almost touching. Her arms were still around him, refusing to budge.

"I told you before," she insisted. "I want you to be happy. I'll tell you that I love you every single day if that's what it takes for you to love yourself."

"You know," he said slowly. "You're so different from her, but in one respect you're the same."

She blinked. "In what way?"

"You're so stubborn," he said, and laughed.

It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard from him. He laughed and laughed and then he cried and neither of them knew the difference. He cried because his heart was broken, because things would never be the same again. He cried for the girl he loved and the storm that had passed. He cried because he was no longer alone.

And he laughed for the same reasons.

* * *

"It didn't hurt too much, did it?"

Lemrina looked up at Slaine's words. For a while, they had been resting against each other in silence. Lemrina had been thinking to herself that, in a sense, a miracle had happened. Even though she was not Asseylum, her words had managed to reach Slaine. It really was nothing short of a miracle.

"What are you talking about?" she asked him.

"Well, you know…" He turned an awkward gaze to the sheets. "Last night."

Lemrina looked down as well. For the first time, she noticed the droplet-sized stains on the pure white sheets.

"Oh," she said.

"I'm sorry," Slaine said, not for the first time. "It hurt, didn't it?"

Lemrina tried to remember.

"I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt," she said finally. She did not want to mention that part of the reason it had hurt so much was because none of his passion had been directed at her. "But at the same time, I wanted to do it."

"How much did it hurt?" He would not stop being apologetic about this.

"Do you want me to put it in decimal terms?"

"Er…"

"And what's all this focus on me? How much did it hurt for you?"

He laughed awkwardly. "It didn't really hurt at all, to be honest…"

"This is what I hate about human biology," Lemrina sniffed. Then she said, "You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

Now Slaine was _really _flustered. "Er, um, well, that is…" He scratched the back of his head. "A little bit…"

He had obviously enjoyed it more than just a little bit. Lemrina still remembered the look of pure bliss on his face after he had finished his climax. He had fallen asleep straight away after that with that look still on his face.

Lemrina considered teasing him, but decided better of it. He was clearly still hung up about what he had done. Perhaps he felt extra guilty because the experience had been so pleasurable for him but so painful for Lemrina.

Lemrina, however, did not mind. It would have been selfish of her to expect him to fall madly in love with her after everything that had happened. She twisted her mouth into a smile. "I can always transform into my sister again, if that's what you like."

"Don't do that!"

She was taken aback by how sharply he spoke. Evidently, his intensity surprised even himself, for he quickly dropped his gaze.

"I knew it was you… so…" He shook his head. "Anyway, don't do that. It's too messed up."

She stared at him in utter non-comprehension. "I thought that the only way you would want to do it with me was if I was her…"

All her life, she had compared herself to Asseylum and found herself lacking. The first time Slaine had ever embraced her, he had thought she was Asseylum. That was months ago. It was the first time she had ever felt like a woman.

"Do you really have such a small opinion of yourself?" Slaine asked with a sigh.

"Huh?"

It had simply never occurred to Lemrina that Slaine could ever fall in love with her. She had lost that battle before it had even started. Last night had only confirmed that in her eyes.

"I'm saying you didn't have to go to such an extreme," he explained. "That's why I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt that way."

"Why wouldn't I feel that way? You never tried to touch me at all…"

His face contorted with shame. "I didn't want to hurt you."

She had no idea what he meant, so she just looked at him, puzzled and vaguely upset, waiting for him to continue.

"I mean, sharing a bed with you was awkward for me as well. I'd never been so close to a girl before. I could hardly get any sleep. The whole time I thought it was improper to touch you."

"You wanted to do it with me…?"

"I don't know. I just felt bad about the whole marriage. Like you were forced into it. I didn't want to make things more difficult for you."

"What do you mean 'I don't know'?"

He blushed.

"Well, um, sometimes when I was lying in bed next to you, my body would sort of just… react. I mean, that sort of thing happens when I'm alone, too, but it's not as awkward. So I'd get up early in the mornings and… well… take care of it…"

Lemrina remembered her own lewd fantasies and how she had needed to use her fingers to relieve the tension. To think Slaine had been going through something similar. What a funny marriage theirs was.

"But I wouldn't have done anything," Slaine went on hastily, "if you hadn't acted first."

Looking back, it all made sense: the polite distance he kept, the fact that he always seemed to be awake before her, his gentle way of handling her. He had refused to kiss her in order to get his Aldnoah privileges back because he had not wanted to take advantage of her confusion and vulnerability.

_We shouldn't_, he had said, after they had kissed last night. He had known that making love to her while she was Asseylum was too cruel, but she had insisted on it anyway. He would probably never forgive himself for going along with it. If he had really been blinded by love for Asseylum, he would probably not have been so torn about it.

"Then…" Lemrina swallowed. She thought she could bear the pain of an unrequited love, but now that she realised that their relationship was more complicated than that, the pain was so much stronger. Her actions had hurt him deeply last night, she knew. "What about my sister?"

He sighed again. "I always admired her, but our relationship was never like that. But I don't know," he said. His voice sounded strained. "I guess deep down I always did see her as a woman. It's complicated."

"It's complicated, all right," said Lemrina, trying to sound dry but only sounding miserable instead.

Slaine shifted uncomfortably. "But you know, Lemrina. I don't think Princess Asseylum would have done what you did for me."

"What do you mean?" Wasn't she a saint?

"She loved the world and everyone in it. She was always so excited about Earth that we never really talked about much else. I don't think I was ever that special to her, at least no more than anyone else."

"Aren't you just underestimating yourself?"

"No, it's true. Princess Asseylum was that kind of person." He did not sound as if he disliked that about her. "But you're different, Lemrina," he went on. "You've seen things she hasn't."

As he spoke, he gazed straight at her eyes and smiled.

She remembered what he said about her having pretty eyes. Lemrina thought she understood that description better now through looking - really looking - at his eyes in return.

_Even when you smile, they somehow seem sad. It's hard to look away._

A shiver went down Lemrina's spine. After everything they had done together, this somehow seemed like their most intimate act of all.

"Thank you," he said finally, "for understanding."

* * *

They talked for a little while longer after that, about their plans and what they would do when they returned to the moon. They talked about the war and what needed to be done to solve the root causes. They talked about Count Saazbaum. They talked about justice. They talked about peace and how best to achieve it.

Eventually, the two of them decided on a course of action, which was just as well because within a few hours they would be heading back to the base.

It was strange. Lemrina had spent the whole week dreading the end of their honeymoon, but now that they had reached the finish line, she was no longer scared of what the future held.

She wondered what Asseylum would think of them. Was she flying now with the birds she had always longed to see with her own two eyes? Wherever she was, was she smiling at those left behind? Or would she have regretted the pain her memory had caused? Would she have still believed in her own ideals if she had known about everything that had come to pass?

Lemrina did not know. She would never know the answer, but somehow it was all right. Things would be all right. They had suffered and caused others to suffer in turn; they had loved and they had lost. No matter what they did, the scars would remain, hidden within plain sight. Even so, things would be all right because they would not stay silent any longer.

Today, they would talk and understand, even if it caused them pain, even if their words failed to make everything right, for together they walked on that same road to peace.

**END PART FOUR**

**Author's note: **The personal is political.

The story of Lemrina and Slaine filled me with a rush of complicated emotions as I was writing it. I hope I managed to convey some of that through my words. Although their relationship has reached closure as far as this particular story is concerned, the process of negotiation is a main theme of the story. Part Five will hopefully tie up the remaining subplots.

The title of this chapter "If I Could Speak" comes from Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi's last words before he was assassinated in 1932 by warmongering Japanese naval officers: "If I could speak, you would understand" (_Hanaseba wakaru)._ I feel that these are words that Princess Asseylum might say.


End file.
